


Graveyard Shift

by Blanquette



Category: Monsta X (Band), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Convenience Store, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff, Hanging Out, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Late at Night, Light Angst, M/M, People Change People, Rare Pairings, References to Depression, Roommates, Slice of Life, bad metaphors
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-27 08:50:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14421822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blanquette/pseuds/Blanquette
Summary: Yoongi works the graveyard shift at a corner store. There's a guy that hangs out there, between one thirty and two forty-five.





	1. Between one thirty and two forty-five

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah this started out as a one shot and it isn't anymore but feel free to just read the first chapter to get that original one shot flavor

**1.**

The graveyard shift always sucked, that much was a given. The little corner shop would stay open all throughout the night, to the benefit of too few people to make it worth Yoongi’s wages, but he wasn’t one to question corporate decisions. Or well, he was, when he wasn’t slugging his way through yet another night of complete and utter boredom.

“Okay, how about this one then?”

Yoongi looks up from scrolling on his phone just long enough to spare a quick glance at the customer browsing the sad ramen shelf a few meters away from them.

“Liberal art major. Sucks at it, though. Going through an existential crisis, after all maybe his dad was right in saying he had no talent and should pursue something based on straight lines and numbers. Wondering if he can drop his shitty one room and go back home to leech actual food after all that grand spiel he spewed about freeing his mind from the establishment before leaving with a self-righteous door slam.”

The guy leaning on the counter at Yoongi’s right elbow sucks in a breath and lets out a tiny laugh, eyes crinkling at the corner. Yoongi isn’t sure when that started. The guy has been showing up steadily for about three weeks now, between the hours of one thirty and two forty-five, never missing more than two nights in a row. Fresh bruises on his collarbones and a fevered light in his eyes. He never buys anything, or maybe he had that first night, Yoongi isn’t too sure, he hadn’t been paying attention. And then he just stuck around. Leaning over the counter and engaging conversations in a smooth voice that somehow cut through Yoongi’s sleepy haze. He had found out about Yoongi’s penchant for spinning stories and since then had asked him to produce a tale about each and every customer that ever entered the shop. Yoongi had complied; it broke through the thick boredom coating his mind.

The customer finally settles on jjapagetti and Yoongi tries not to judge him too hard as he rings him up. While he fishes out his money, the other inches slowly forward until he’s hovering too close for comfort and the shopper looks up at him questioningly.

"What?"

“Hey. Have I seen you somewhere? You’re from uni, right? What’s your major?”

“Oh. Yeah. I’m liberal arts. You?”

Yoongi’s eyes actually go wide at that, and the other guy pinches his lips in an obvious attempt to prevent a laugh from escaping. He speaks in a strangled voice then, feigning nonchalance.

“Botany.”

The customer’s eyebrows shoot up and he’s about to say that there’s no such things as a botanical major at whatever university he frequents when he’s just good-naturedly waved off.

“I’ll see you around then. Have a good one!”

The customer hovers hesitantly for a couple of seconds, staring until he finally nods, a bit curtly, and leaves the shop. The guy immediately turns to Yoongi, cuffing him lightly on the shoulder, laughing.

“How the heck did you know that? Man, now I wonder if you were right about the rest.”

Yoongi shrugs, picking his phone back up.

“It’s just a common enough story, and he did look like he was an art student, you know, with the overall ‘I shop at thrift stores’ look.”

The guy snorts, and Yoongi tries once again to remember his name, but come to think of it, he’s not even sure they ever introduced themselves. They fall into a comfortable silence then, the guy leaning back against the counter while Yoongi busies himself scrolling through social media until the tiny writings start to blur before his eyes. There’s a soft yawn and he spares a glance at the guy who’s stretching, arms crossed behind his head. His flimsy white shirt is riding up and there’s a bruise on his left hip, just barely visible above the waist of his jeans. Yoongi stares until the arms drop back down. The image pulls at something in Yoongi, something dark akin to fear and worry.

“Hey, why are you always cov-”

“I’m gonna go home.”

“Uh?”

“It’s late.”

The guy cuts him off as if he hadn’t heard, pointing to the clock hanging above the counter behind Yoongi. The cashier nods, and waves sluggishly as the guy saunters off. It strikes him, then, just as the glass door closes with a jingle, that they only exist in the same space during this very limited time frame between dog and wolf, when everything feels like a dream. He tries, but he can’t spin any story around the guy, he can’t imagine him being anything other than a lanky frame leaning against his counter, with feverish eyes and too many bruises, asking again and again, “how about that one?”

 

 

**2.**

“What about her?”

Yoongi follows the guy’s jutting chin to the woman it designates. She’s too old and too sober to be here at this time.

“Recently divorced. Suddenly doesn’t know what to do with all that freedom. It’s not her turn to have the kids and she slowly realizes she doesn’t even know who she is anymore, after dedicating her life first to her husband, who didn’t really deserve it, and then to her kids, who she didn’t really want in the first place. Skipped a meal just because she could and realized she forgot to do groceries. Nearing a midlife crisis I’d say.”

There’s the familiar snort again, and the guy crosses his arms on a narrow chest.

“Everyone is in some kind of crisis with you.”

“Says the guy who comes every goddamn night to hang out with the cashier of a shitty convenience store.”

“Touché.”

He’s laughing, ignoring the latent question in Yoongi’s words. What the hell are you doing here? Yoongi wants to know, but he doesn’t ask. They’re not friends, really, barely acquaintances. They don’t know each other’s names and only exists together for two hours a night, a time they spend spinning lives for strangers rather than talking about their own.

The guy shifts, closing his eyes for something longer than a blink while stifling a yawn, and Yoongi stare. A dream he might as well be, bone-thin and pale, dressed too lightly for the weather; a summer ghost who has no place in their waning autumn. The harsh lighting of the store doesn’t flatter him, lending a sickish hue to his skin and outlining every single shadows in his face. He looks tired. Or, well, not exactly. Yoongi looks tired, purple bags under his eyes and languid motions that betray the lack of sleep insomnia cursed him with. The guy looks weary. Burned out, almost, if it wasn’t for the fevered glint in his eyes.

“Do you really study botany?”

“What?”

“Botany. Is that really your major?”

Yoongi can almost see the gears turning in the guy’s head until he remembers what happened the other night. He laughs, and his face changes completely, something young and carefree blooming there that has Yoongi staring again.

“Nah, it just the first thing I could think of. I don’t even go to uni.”

It’s the most the guy ever shared about himself, as tiny as it is, and his image in Yoongi’s mind solidifies, if only slightly. Yoongi wonders if he can push it, or if the guy will say it’s getting late again, and he should be getting home, wherever home is.

“What do you do then? During the day.”

The guy cocks his head, studying Yoongi for a silent beat, until a playful smile stretches his lips.

“What do you think I’m doing?”

“I don’t know?”

“You can’t imagine something?”

Yoongi shrugs. He can’t rightly tell the guy he doesn’t feel real enough for him to spin one of his lousy tales.

“Somehow I feel like you just belong in a shitty convenience store.”

“Well gee, I don’t even know how to take that.”

The guy laughs and Yoongi then understand that the conversation is over. He offers a tiny smile, goes back to bury himself in his phone, going over his sns mentions. His mind drifts again, though, wondering. Does the guy have any friends? Does he have a twitter handle, does he shitpost on message boards and ignores the ktalk messages he doesn’t want to answer, even though the red dot irks the hell out of him? It feels wrong, somehow, he cannot picture it. Yoongi is halfway convinced the guy just disappears into thin air once he goes out into the night.

 

 

**3.**

Maybe he does disappear. The guy doesn’t come the next night, nor the one after that. On the third night he doesn’t show, Yoongi thinks this is it, whatever it was, it is over, and there’s a strange pang of sadness tugging at his heart. He feels lonely, really, and if he tries to invent stories it doesn’t work as well when there’s no one listening.

 

 

**4.**

“What about them?”

Yoongi wakes with a jolt, sits up wincing at the crick in his neck. The guy is staring back at him with an amused smirk and Yoongi blinks the sleep out of his eyes, astonished.

“Shit, you fucking scared me.”

“Nice to see you too.”

The guy is grinning and somehow he looks livelier, less like a ghost, although he’s still wearing a ratty tee shirt and there’s an ugly splash of greenish yellow spilling over his collarbones. Yoongi blatantly stares and the guy shifts, the first display of discomfort he ever showed.

“What the hell happened to you?”

“You know, I never noticed, but you’re actually pretty rude.”

Yoongi brushes his hair out his eyes, a strange mixture of relief and annoyance blurring his mind. The guy ignores him, turns his back to the counter to lean against it. He jerks his head towards the gaggle of teenagers loitering around the fridges where the drinks are and reiterates his earlier demand.

“What about them?”

Yoongi stares at the back of the store, slightly bewildered, before shrugging and propping his head up in his hands, elbows on the counter. The kids are arguing between themselves in hushed voices, counting and recounting the money one of them grips in his palm.

“Students from the dance studio across the street. The errand boys. Don’t have enough money for the fancy beers but the normal ones taste like shit and they don’t want their hyungs to be mad. Practice ran late and everyone is hugely tired. The oldest hyung is a cranky sonuvabitch but they’re all half in love with him cause he’s just that good at what he does. They wanna leave a good impression. Probably gonna try to steal one or two bottle.”

The guy taps his chin pensively, eyes not leaving the huddled group of teenagers. One of them nervously glances their way before getting back to admonishing their treasurer.

“What are you gonna do about that?”

“Nothing. I’m not paid enough to care.”

“Doesn’t it get taken away from your paycheck?”

Yoongi shrugs, a bored look on his face.

“Nah. There’s a quota.”

“A stealing quota?”

“Something like that.”

“Did you notice I was gone?”

“What?”

Yoongi stares at the back of the guy’s head. There’s a tension to his shoulders that wasn’t there a minute ago, and the silence between them hangs heavy. Yoongi isn’t sure what it is exactly that the guy is asking, but he figures there’s no harm in being honest.

“Of course I fucking noticed you were gone.”

The cashier isn’t so sure why he is so annoyed but he wants to grab the guy and shake him, suddenly, check for himself if his flesh is as tangible as his own or if his hand will just go right through him as it looked like it would so many times. The guy turns around, slightly surprised at the harsh tone of Yoongi’s voice. They stare at each other, silent, until a slow, amused smile creeps its way on the guy’s lips.

“Did you miss me?”

The tension deflates immediately and Yoongi cuffs him on the shoulder, hiding his embarrassment behind fake annoyance.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, I don’t even know your damn name.”

“Kihyun.”

“Uh?

“The name’s Kihyun.”

“Oh. Okay. I’m Yoongi.”

The guy nods, just once, as if committing this information to memory requires a special effort. It feels a bit solemn, this exchange of names; as though something grave has just happened that Yoongi cannot quite grasp the depth of yet. He wants to ask more, but it doesn’t feel like the right time. So he falls silent, watching as the guy – Kihyun – turns to stare at the kids at the back of the store. They seem to have settled on something and Yoongi rings them up with an absent stare when they walk up, seemingly oblivious to their nervous fidgeting and that one guy’s backpack, much heavier than when he came in.

“You were right about the stealing.”

“Yeah, they’re not as sleek as they think they are. Obvious first timers.”

“You get many repeated offenders?”

Yoongi shrugs and the guy seems content with taking that for an answer, busying himself with pulling loose threads from his shirt. It used to be black, probably, until repeat washings turned it the kind of grey that really isn’t a color at all. Not for the first time Yoongi wonders if the guy simply doesn’t have any decent clothing or if he just doesn’t care.

“Hey.”

“Mh?”

“Kihyun.”

“Yeah?”

“What happened to you when you were gone?”

Kihyun stares. It seems that using his name lends Yoongi’s words a weight they didn’t use to have. Maybe it is true, then, that knowing someone’s name gives you some kind of power over them. The guy seems to mull it over, looks up to the ceiling and then down at his feet, finally settling his gaze on a point slightly above Yoongi’s left ear. He has a faraway look, face set in an uneasy frown.

“You noticed, yeah?”

He gestures vaguely to his person. Yoongi isn’t sure if he means the clothes, the bruises, the bone-deep weariness or all of it at once. But he noticed, Yoongi noticed everything. So he nods, not trusting words in case the sound of his voice breaks whatever spell got Kihyun talking.

“Things aren’t… Things aren’t so great. At home. And sometimes I can’t slip away.”

He swallows, drops his gaze to the floor. He looks almost shy, like this, brittle, and Yoongi wants to reach out. He doesn’t, though, it seems Kihyun would crumble under his touch like a pile of salt.

“Can’t you… can’t you leave for good?”

“To go where? It’s still home. It’s still family. And it’s not just me, either.”

“Family isn’t supposed to be like this.”

Kihyun shrugs, and there’s a smile on his lips, something small and barely there that Yoongi hates.

“It’s okay. It won’t last forever. I’m fine.”

“I’m not fine.”

Kihyun looks up, startled out of his vacant staring.

“No?”

“No. You were right. I missed you when you were gone.”

“Yeah?”

The smile grows and it’s better, so much better. Yoongi isn’t really sure what the guy expects, with this hopeful glint in his eyes, isn’t really sure where he’s going with this himself, but his words seem to cut through the dark vines ensnaring them both, so he keeps going, filling the silence with too loud words spoken too quickly.

“Yeah. It’s lonely here, really lonely, you got no idea. And I got used to you, so there’s no going back now, you can’t just disappear on me. Someday it might not be fine anymore and it will be too late and that’s not right, really.”

“Yeah, I guess it isn’t.”

There’s a silent beat, where they both look at each other with a tinge of shyness, not sure what to make of this sudden shift, this acknowledgement that the relationship they built in the dark hours has weight and meaning, a depth they do not quite fathom. Yoongi’s gaze catches on the dull colors of Kihyun’s collarbones and his breath itches; there are words on his lips that he spills before he can think better and swallow them all.

“That will sound really weird, cause all in all we barely know each other, but. Yeah, do you wanna crash with me? I mean, I’m not doing great, I work night in a convenience store so I guess you probably already figured that out, but I have room for one person, I guess. You won’t have to try and slip away.”

Yoongi hears himself rambling, sees the look on Kihyun’s face, his slowly darkening eyes, can almost see the vines creeping back, slithering against his chest and squeezing too tight, but somehow he cannot stop himself until it’s too late. Kihyun steps back, just one tiny step and yet he is a ghost again, intangible and unreachable.

“I told you. It’s not just me. I can’t just leave. I don’t need you to save me.”

Yoongi wishes he could close his mouth, get his mind to settle and the tempest in his head to clear out but he can’t, he really can’t, and there’s more words spilling out that deepen the chasm slowly forming between them and he sees Kihyun’s gaze drift to the clock but it’s too early, he knows it is, it’s barely been half an hour since Kihyun stepped in and yet –

“I think I need to go home. I’ll see you.”

And he doesn’t wait, and he’s gone, and Yoongi slowly sinks on the counter, the vines taking roots in his lungs making it hard to breath.

 

 

**5.**

He’s deserted again, and the hours stretch throughout the night, empty and meaningless; in his stories people are somber and mean, dispirited as they shuffle through shelves under a glaring light that only highlights the missing parts of their lives.

Yoongi sighs and mopes and beats himself up and maybe he falls asleep at the counter but at least it’s better than being awake and alone.

 

 

**6.**

“What’s up with her?”

Again Yoongi is startled awake by a familiar voice but this time he doesn’t say anything, just stares, and the guy waits him out with a sheepish look on his face. He looks apologetic, almost, but Yoongi doesn’t ask, gaze drifting to the woman stacking soju bottles in a rickety shopping basket, enough to fuel a small army.

“She said stupid shit to a guy cause she didn’t know how to handle some stuff. Guy disappeared after that so now she’s slowly drinking herself to death out of guilt.”

Kihyun nods, humming under his breath.

“Was it that stupid?”

“Yeah, it was pretty stupid.”

Another nod, and the guy shuffles closer, looking at the woman rather than at Yoongi.

“Did she mean well?”

“She did. Doesn’t mean she knew what she was talking about. Doesn’t make it any less stupid.”

They stop talking when the woman comes up to the counter, and she doesn’t look at him either when Yoongi rings her up. He starts to wonder if maybe he’s slowly turning invisible when she still doesn’t acknowledge him as he hands her the filled bag.

It’s just the two of them when she leaves, and Yoongi stares holes into the door, wishing someone would just step in and break the heavy silence that settled between them. But it is two thirty-four in the morning and no one has errands to run; the door remains despairingly closed.

“I’m sorry.”

“Uh?”

Kihyun is staring at his feet when he speaks, and for the first time Yoongi notices he’s finally dressed for the weather. A thin sweater and an old army jacket at least a size too big, his hands stuffed into the pockets. It makes him look even smaller, somehow, and this time when he wants to reach out Yoongi does, awkwardly bending over the counter to grab at Kihyun’s wrist.

The guy looks up at him slightly startled, then back down at the hand clasped around his arm. Slowly, as if not to startle a small animal, he takes his hand out if his pocket and shifts in Yoongi’s grasp until their fingers link together.

“I meant sorry for disappearing on you again.”

“It’s okay. I was the one being a presumptuous idiot.”

“Yeah, you kinda were.”

Yoongi snorts, staring at their hands. Kihyun is warm and this surprises him, somehow, he was expecting cold, even clammy, something closer to death than the warm pulse he can feel thrumming under the guy’s skin. Not a summer ghost, then, not a dream that only lives in the waning hours of the night they share under harsh fluorescent light. Someone with a past, with a present and hopefully a future, if he isn’t swallowed whole by the green and purple splashes that bloom on his skin.

“I’m sorry, Kihyun. That wasn’t really my place.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t. But I think it’s not mine either.”

Yoongi looks up at that, Kihyun’s face obscured by too long bangs that fall into his face.

“What? What do you mean?”

“It’s not your place to save me and it’s not my place to save anyone else, either. We can only save ourselves, I think. And so. Yeah, I thought. I thought it’s gonna be hard to leave but my ribs hurt when I breath and I don’t think it’s fine anymore. So, yeah.”

He kicks softly at something near the counter and when Yoongi leans over to look it’s a black duffle bag, and Kihyun doesn’t look him in the eye, hiding behind his hair and too many unspoken words. But he doesn’t let go of Yoongi’s hand and the cashier smile, tentative, tugging a little to get Kihyun to look at him.

“My shift ends at 7 but I can give you my door code, if you don’t wanna wait that long. I live close by.”

“Yeah, okay.”

 

**7.**

There’s a strange sense of anticipation when Yoongi stands in front of his door. He punches in the code slowly, waiting for the tell tale biping before the lock slides open. It barely takes a few seconds but it feels like too many minutes, time stretching out until he’s inside, shoes toed off and jacket thrown haphazardly on a kitchen chair.

He doesn’t see him at first, not until he’s tripping over the duffle bag and almost face-plants in the couch where the guy is curled up, fast asleep under his too-big jacket. Yoongi stares then, sitting on the floor near his face. He feels like a creep for half a second, but then light starts spilling from the window and he realizes it’s the first time he sees the guy under natural light, and he looks so much softer, no more hard shadows and jutting angles. He looks realer, too, solid under the hand Yoongi puts on his shoulder, shaking him lightly.

“Hey, wake-up. Let’s eat something and actually go to bed, yeah?”

Kihyun wakes with a start and he’s immediately alert, sitting up almost violently.

“Hey, it’s just me.”

“Shit, sorry. Didn’t know where I was for a second.”

“It’s okay. Food?”

“Yeah, sure.”

It is strange, interacting in a place that isn’t as impersonal as the convenience store. Under soft lighting and cozy surroundings, they’re not just that guy and the third shift worker anymore, two drifters passing time by spinning stories on strangers. In the tiny apartment they’re Kihyun and Yoongi, and they’re not sure how one is supposed to fit with the other.

They’ll find out, though. Kihyun sleeps near the edge of the mattress because he feels claustrophobic between the wall and Yoongi, and the cashier could have offered the couch really, but then Kihyun rolls over and settles against his chest, warm and solid and this is fine, this is okay, and if Yoongi still cannot sleep well at least he’s not so lonely anymore.


	2. Six thirty in the morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yoongi receives a series of texts at six thirty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELP I GUESS THIS ISN'T A ONE SHOT ANYMORE
> 
> So like I don't know where this is going at all, but after all the nice comments everyone left I kept thinking about this story and well, I'm still bored at work so this happened. Plus someone needs to fill that yooki tag or whatever their shipname is and I guess I can do that?
> 
> I'm actually sweating I really do not want to disappoint lmao so I hope you guys will like this new chapter. Cause this is a chaptered fic now I guess. Damn.

**1**.

_Who’s that guy in your apartment?_

_What?_

_There is a guy in your apartment._

_What are you doing at my apartment?_

_I got your door code, remember?_

_That’s not an answer._

_You didn’t give me one either. Who’s that guy in your apartment?_

Yoongi looks up from his phone long enough to ring up a small guy in an oversized hoodie buying a lone bag of honey chips. He looks tired, the guy, with bags under his eyes and the corner of his mouth drooping. He nods vaguely, takes his change and stretches as he leaves the convenience store. It’s six thirty in the morning and Yoongi cannot imagine why someone would buy a bag of honey chips at that time. He cannot imagine what Namjoon is doing at his apartment, either.

_Don’t wake him up._

Yoongi straightens behind the counter, shaking his hair out of his eyes. The store is empty now, will probably stay that way until the first shift worker takes over. His eyes travel, over the shelves he was too lazy to restock, the crude lighting sharpening their metallic edges, washing out the colors of the junk food packages until they merge and blur in front of his eyes. He blinks, slowly, willing himself to root back into the moment. But the early morning hours always felt strange to him, out-of-time, almost, the air crisp, dust floating in the ashen light filtering through the glass panels as the sun drags itself out of slumber. If he closes his eyes and slows his breathing he can feel himself break apart, his body dissolving into the still air, slowly, turning into light and dust and ashes.

_He’s not sleeping._

_What’s he doing?_

_Staring at me._

_What are you doing?_

_Staring at him? And texting, obviously._

_That sounds painful_

_It is._

The minutes go by achingly slow. Six-thirty turns into six-thirty six and six-forty two and Yoongi dissolves twice and thrice during that time. He stares at his phone and he doesn’t know what to say. That guy in his apartment is just that. He used to be that guy from the convenience store at two am, and now he’s the guy who’s asleep on his couch when Yoongi gets home. The guy he shakes lightly on the shoulder to wake him, the guy who opens his eyes with a start, hands flying, until he realizes it’s just Yoongi and no one is out to get him. The guy he shares a leftover meal with before they settle into bed, blackout curtains drawn. The guy who is always the first one to shift, the first one to edge closer to the center of the bed, until Yoongi turns on his side and tentatively drapes an arm around him, tugging him closer to his chest, sharing warmth and comforting touches, feathery light in the dark.

Yoongi still doesn’t know what the guy does during the day, when he himself finally falls into a fitful sleep. He feels him, sometimes, during bouts of half-wakefulness, lying still next to him. Sometimes he feels nothing. They don’t talk much, not yet. They don’t see each other much, either. Sometimes Yoongi gets home to banknotes neatly stacked on the table and the guy already in bed. He uses the money to pay rent, to buy groceries, to replace the leaky faucet in the bathroom. Theirs is a strange routine, a strange relationship. Yoongi finds that he doesn’t mind too much. Yoongi finds that he cannot put it in words for Namjoon to read.

_I think he lowkey hates me._

_Everyone lowkey hates you_

_Thanks. Srsly tho since when did you get a roommate? Or bedmate. Is he your bedmate? Are you guys sleeping together?_

_We’re not_

_You’re not as in not yet or not ever?_

_Can you stfu_

_Not my fault you’re being all mysterious abt your fancy roommate/bedmate_

_I’m almost done I’ll be home soon_

_If you find my lifeless body your bedmate did it_

_Stop calling him my bedmate_

_What should I call him then_

_Idk but not that stop pestering me_

**2.**

He hovers before opening the door. The handles of the bag of almost-expired food he got from the convenience store are slicing into his fingers, painful enough that the situation feels sufficiently real for him to get nervous. He’s sweating, and he’s tired, and there’s Namjoon in his space behind this door; he doesn’t know if he can deal with him, deal with words and smiles and the questions he’s sure to be asked. Briefly he wonders why he never feels that way with the guy, with Kihyun. Kihyun is barely there, though. A soft presence bleeding into his life like diluted watercolors, light touches and sharp words spoken smoothly over microwaved meals. Never too much. But never enough, either, and there’s a foreign want unfurling in his chest.

_Dude hurry the fuck up the awkwardness is reaching critical mass in 3 2 1_

His phone finds its place back into his pocket as he opens the door, pushing it close with his foot as he takes in the scene. Kihyun is curled up on the couch, looking faintly annoyed, while Namjoon draped himself over a chair at the dining table. He perks up immediately at seeing Yoongi, dimpled smile stretching his lips.

“Hey. Welcome back.”

“Hey yourself. What are you doing here?”

“Just checking up on you.”

Yoongi winces, sparing a glance at Kihyun, still looking supremely bored on his couch. But his eyebrow is slightly cocked and he looks back at him, a question in his face that Yoongi would rather ignore. So he trudges to the table, freeing his hand from the grocery bag as Namjoon gets up, tall and gangly, to hover around him as if he meant to help but wasn’t sure how.

“Okay, why are you really here?”

Namjoon has the decency to look sheepish as Yoongi hands him a tuna can to put away.

“Went out with the roomie. Then he yet again met the love of his life.”

“So you got sexiled and suddenly remembered that I exist?”

Namjoon clutches at his chest in fake hurt while Yoongi blatantly ignores him, balling up the plastic bag to put it away with the rest of his growing collection.

“I would have called if I’d known you’d have company.”

“That’s Kihyun. He lives here.”

Yoongi feels as if he’s saying too much and not enough. He’s Kihyun, and he’s ratty clothes and sharp collarbones, quiet breaths in artificial darkness and loud laughs, sometimes, rarely, too rarely maybe, vague glimpses of something shimmering under the surface of his skin, beaten back into dark corners where nothing can reach it.

“Yeah, we got that far.”

Yoongi cringes, glances Kihyun’s way again, who’s busying himself with one of the ratty paperbacks that has been taking up space on Yoongi’s coffee table ever since he moved in. He looks small, like this. Kihyun always looks small, faded, as if avoiding to draw attention to himself had become second-nature. His presence is so big, though, when he allows it to be, taking up the whole room and the entirety of Yoongi’s mind.

“He just needed a place to crash.”

Namjoon nods, doesn’t push, and Yoongi remembers why they are friends.

“So you’re doing okay?”

“I am.”

“Great. How’s the retail industry treating ya?”

Yoongi sends him a long-suffering look over the pot of water he’s putting on the stove and Namjoon just grins back, bright and teasing. Some of the tension lifts off Yoongi’s shoulders, then. This is Namjoon. Namjoon is safe, always has been, annoying and overbearing sometimes, but Yoongi needed it. And maybe he still does, as his friend is looking through the fridge for some ‘damn vegetables’ because ‘scurvy is a real thing’.

Yoongi gets through the meal. He gets through Namjoon taking up residence on his couch, through brushing their teeth together, making faces in the mirror as Kihyun disappears into his bedroom. He gets through Namjoon making a point of not saying anything about it, through him promising to be gone when he wakes-up. It’s not so bad.

 

**3.**

Somehow, even though his bedroom’s door is closed, knowing there is someone else sleeping in his home, on his couch, makes everything different. Yoongi’s mind is reeling, more so than usual, and he’s replaying the early morning is his head, over and over, looking for something. He doesn’t know what, exactly, but it must be there somewhere, in their easy familiarity, their playfully hostile interactions, in the curve of Namjoon’s smile, in his words, his laugh, in the noises he made while eating. He finds nothing, but he is still searching.

He chances a look at Kihyun beside him. The guy didn’t move yet, didn’t inch closer to him, and he can see his eyes are wide open, black hair spilling on his pillow like ink, skin pale, yet a summer ghost in ratty clothing, out-of-place but still fitting in, somehow. Yoongi tries, then, his own hand creeping forward under the cover, until he finds a bony wrist to latch onto. Kihyun twitches, but doesn’t move away. After a while he shifts in Yoongi’s grasp, until their fingers are linked together. It’s a repeat of a familiar gesture, and Yoongi closes his eyes, focusing on Kihyun’s skin under his fingers. Warm, always warm.

“What did he mean?”

“Uh?”

“When, you know, he said he was checking up on you. Do you need checking up on?”

Yoongi stays silent for a beat. Kihyun’s voice is quiet in the dark, almost a whisper, as if he was asking about a secret, something buried and forgotten. Something painful.

“Well. I guess I didn’t always have my shit together.”

“Cause you do now?”

Yoongi elbows him as the guy snorts, an ugly sound that stirs something warm in his chest.

“Says the guy who ran away from home like a teenager.”

“Hey, you’re the one who offered.”

“Couldn’t refuse my manly charms?”

“More like pitied your ugly ass.”

This is expected, Yoongi thinks. Skirting around uneasy truths by way of playful teasing, simple words that don’t hold much, no consequences to be suffered later. And yet Kihyun’s grasp on his hand is stronger, and he slowly shifted closer, molding his body against Yoongi’s side. His breath is fanning out against Yoongi’s neck, hair brushing his cheek, and Yoongi keeps his eyes closed, letting the guy flood his senses, drowning out the relentless buzzing of his mind. It’s easier to breathe, somehow, something tight slowly giving way.

“He needed to make sure I would get up to eat. That I would shower. Go to my appointments and take my meds. Sometimes he’d stay over, during bad spells. Things like that, you know.”

Maybe Kihyun doesn’t know. But Yoongi still speaks softly into his hair, and Kihyun still nods, slipping an arm around his waist to hold him impossibly tight, and it feels safe, somehow, sheltered.

“It kinda sucked for a long time.”

He has an uneasy laugh, tight and unsure; Kihyun echoes it with one of his own, and there’s weariness in his voice when he speaks again.

“Yeah, I know all about sucking. But we’re fine now.”

“Well, I mean. I’m working retail, so…”

Kihyun clicks his tongue and shifts his head, moving back a little to stare at Yoongi’s profile.

“I can’t believe you passed up a dick joke opportunity for a retail one.”

“What are you, twelve?”

“You’d put a twelve year old in your bed?”

Yoongi laughs and it’s a stupid quip, really, but the awkward weight of his confession feels distant now, his words almost trivial. It’s just something that happened, some time ago, to a version of himself who only still exists through the traces it left behind, fitful sleep and a loneliness seated deep in his bones.

“How did it come to this?”

“You can only blame yourself, making it so easy.”

“You’re easy.”

Kihyun opens his mouth on a retort, cannot get it out before Yoongi covers his mouth with his free hand.

“Shh. Just, shut up. Not a word.”

Kihyun bites his fingers, Yoongi hisses, there’s some light scuffling and then – then he feels it again, pooling in his chest, filling up the hollow space below his heart. Want, really, unyielding, and he spreads his fingers on Kihyun’s collarbones, his body warm underneath his palm, chest raising and falling. In the darkness he can barely make out the outline of the guy’s face, but somehow he knows; his eyes are wide, his lips slightly parted on a smirk, hair spilling, and Yoongi wants him. He wants everything.

“Shit.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Just. Let’s go to sleep, yeah? It’s late. Or early, whatever.”

He doesn’t wait for a response, turns on his side, back to Kihyun. He feels it then, the hesitation, the slight shuffle; and there’s light fingers grasping at his shirt, pulling him until he’s flushed against a narrow chest.

“Hey, it’s okay, it is.”

Yoongi nods, slowly. Once, twice. Lets his limbs unfurl a little, lets himself fall back against Kihyun, into the familiar warmth. If he closes his eyes and slows his breathing he can feel himself break apart, his body dissolving into the still air, slowly, turning into light and dust and ashes. It’s okay. It is. The guy catches everything and holds it sheltered against bruised skin and broken bones.


	3. Four O'clock in the afternoon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yoongi has a busy day, somehow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter might be a tad self-indulging and I'm very sorry lmao (I'm looking at you, number two)
> 
> For those of you who have noticed: yes there's barely any plot and I completely understand if I lose you along the way :'D

**1.**

It is strange, being awake at this time. The light has neither the dim shade of twilight nor the greyish tones of the early morning. It’s bright, too bright almost; Yoongi feels there is nowhere to hide. He’s out of place. Out of time, too, as if this wasn’t meant for him – the bustle of the street he can see through the window, the sounds of voices and cars, the bright colors and the warmth; everything is too sharp, too lively. He likes the eerie softness of the dark hours, the fragile stillness they hold. Everything seems a little duller then, a little less real, and he feels sheltered, safe, a silent observer on the outskirts. Life isn’t passing him by because there is no life to be had in the nights he made his own. But daylight is different. Daylight casts everything is sharp relief and he cannot dissolve into the air. There’s expectations put upon him. A shift in the corner of his eye, a throat clearing, trying to grab his attention, drag it back, really.

Yoongi shifts in his chair, tugs at his collar a little, anchoring himself back in the moment as he drags his eyes from the window, settling them on the person opposite him seated behind a desk.

“Min-ssi?”

Yoongi nods, if only to indicate that he’s listening, and there’s a floating smile on the person’s face until they are speaking again.

“It’s been quite a while since the last time we saw each other. Have you considered what we’ve spoken about?”

Yoongi fans his fingers on his lap, counts the spaces between his knuckles. There’s a patient silence on the other side of the desk and he knows he’s going to disappoint, but he’s learned this space is not for lying.

“I don’t think I’m ready yet. I’ve thought about it, but it feels overwhelming.”

“That’s quite all right.”

Yoongi chews the inside of his cheek, chances a glance outside the window. A car honks, there’s someone crossing in the middle of traffic, running to catch a bus. It’s a few more seconds until he puts words on the sinking worry in his stomach, and he speaks them at the glass panel, softly. The person strains to hear.

“You don’t think I’m indulging myself?”

“Do you?”

“I should have… Get on with things. You know. Graduate. Get a real job. And I’m still… doing nothing.”

“No one is keeping scores.”

“I know, but it… it bothers me.”

“You know what you need to do, if it bothers you.”

A smile makes its way to Yoongi’s lips, small but still amused as he looks back towards the desk. The person is smiling too and suddenly Yoongi feels a weight lift off, the air flowing more easily into his lungs.

“I got a roommate.”

“You did?”

The person’s eyebrows shoot up in unfeigned surprise, and Yoongi feels strangely giddy. As if he’s telling a secret. Not the uneasy kind, the kind that stays buried and festers until it inescapably spills over, drowning the mind in thick dark ink. This one feels precious. This one is the kitten he picked off the street and hid from his parents for as long as he could. It’s the hidden spot near the river he showed Namjoon, where it was always just them, and the greasy take-out food they brought. It’s him covering for his older brother staying out after curfew, and the imported cds he’d pay him back with, that he used to hide under his bed.

 “Yeah, I did.”

“That’s good. And how is it going?”

“I don’t know? We don’t talk much.”

“Does it bother you?”

“No. It’s… nice. That someone is there. We get along, I think.”

“But?”

“Why do you think there is a but?”

“There is always a but. You only mention things with a but.”

When Yoongi doesn’t make the obvious butt joke there, and wonders if the guy would have been disappointed in him for the yet again missed opportunity, there’s a kind of warmth unfurling in his chest that isn’t so foreign anymore, and his eyes drift back to the window. As the afternoon lumbers on there is less traffic, less reckless pedestrians weaving between cars to catch buses to work, or home, or anywhere else. The person waits him out, looking through the same window, face carefully blank.

“How do you know…”

Yoongi interrupts himself, starts again, this time looking back at the person, who gazes at him in a careful, open sort of way.

“You know, everything is getting sharper these days. I know you told me it gets like this, with the meds, and with, with the whole getting better thing, and it’s great, but then… It’s very confusing, too. How do I know what it is that I am feeling? I feel like… Like I have to relearn everything. How to interpret… Stuff. What I’m doing. What my body is doing. Cause it’s been so… quiet, for a long time. It’s so noisy now.”

There’s a gentle smile on the person’s face, reassuring, and Yoongi feels like a child but somehow, it isn’t so bad.

“It’s okay. You will learn. That’s life. Feelings are confusing for everyone.”

 

**2.**

“Don’t you have work?”

“No. It’s my night off.”

“Okay. Where are we going?”

“There’s a place I wanna show you.”

The guy doesn’t say anything more, just lets himself be dragged through the darkened streets. It’s a companionable silence, the guy absorbed in watching the life around him, the noisy restaurants, the people busy going in and out of bars, their skin glowing under colored neon lights. It’s a bit exhilarating somehow, to be there, even if they don’t partake in the bustle, just two shadows quickly disappearing at the next turn. Smells and noises and bright flashing lights, a whole world that only exists for a few hours, fascinating and just that frantic, as if aware of its own brevity. The guy loves it. The guy stares at the back of Yoongi’s head and wishes he would slow down, just a bit, sit for a while maybe, let the pink and red and blue light refract on his skin. And then, Yoongi does just that. Takes a turn and lead them down a grassy slope, through bushes that seem too thick to go through but are strangely yielding, and he hears the sound of water before he sees it.

“The river?”

“Yeah.”

Yoongi sits down, directly on the grass, and the guy follows him, scooting closer to steal warmth and companionship. It’s dark here, but the lampposts of a nearby bridge crown the river’s tiny waves with refracted light and, well, it’s beautiful. The guy says as much.

“I used to come here with Namjoon. The guy you met.”

“Oh, the awkward one.”

“You’re pretty awkward too.”

“But in a cool way.”

Yoongi turns his head, leveling the guy with a stare that has him grinning. He looks younger, like this, something tight giving way that has Yoongi wondering again, about what it is exactly, that made him who he is. He doesn’t ask. He stares at the river instead, the dark water lapping gently a few feet away from them. If he stares long enough the sounds seep into his mind until they’re all he hears, smooth and appeasing. The guy’s voice cuts through, though, before Yoongi is too far gone.

 “What did you guys do here?”

“Just hang out. Eat. Drink, sometimes, after classes.”

“You don’t do it anymore?”

Yoongi shrugs, shaking his head, stretching if only to give his body something to do, a feeble attempt at quelling the jittery feeling rising in his guts.

“No.”

“Classes?”

“Don’t do that anymore, either.”

He waits for a question that never comes; the guy has brought his knees up against his chest and stares ahead, a faraway look on his face.

“I didn’t go to uni, either. I think I wouldn’t have been very good at it.”

“Why not?”

“Well, you have to pay attention, for once. And like, you know, wake-up.”

“Ah, see, that was my problem too.”

The guy laughs, knocks shoulder with Yoongi and then just stays there, halfway crumbled against him, leaning a bit too heavily for it to be strictly comfortable and yet Yoongi doesn’t mind, just accommodates this new weight against his side as best he can. The guy speaks again, voice quiet.

“We should have brought something to eat. And drink. And like, fireworks.”

“Fireworks? Seriously?”

The guy nods against his shoulder.

“At heart I’m really just a high school girl high on romance.”

“Wanna call me oppa?”

There’s an ungainly snort and a hard shove, hard enough that Yoongi stumbles and hits the ground. He just stays there, the grass cool and a little damp under him.

“You’re gross. Are you even older than me? Fuck, we really don’t know anything about each other, do we?”

“I guess not.”

The guy tugs at Yoongi’s arm until the latter is lying flat on his back, shifts until he can pillow his head on his belly.

“It’s kind of nice, though. I wish the past didn’t matter.”

Yoongi nods, realizes the guy cannot see him and takes to carding cold fingers through his hair instead, humming low under his breath. It’s a bit strange, he thinks, how they fell into each other so easily, sharing words and touches freely when they didn’t even know each other’s full names. Bedmates, Namjoon had called them, and maybe he was right, in a way. Just like children bring soft toys to make the nights less lonely, Yoongi had brought Kihyun with him.

“Hey.”

“Mh?”

“What do you do during the day? When I’m asleep. Sometimes, you’re not there.”

“How do you know I’m not there if you’re asleep?”

“Oppa just knows everything.”

There’s a hard pinch on the soft flesh of his belly and Yoongi shrieks, swatting at Kihyun’s head. The guy turns on his side then, face half-buried in Yoongi’s shirt, mumbling profanities under his breath. Yoongi waits him out, staring up at the night sky. He can’t see any stars tonight, clouds and pollution building a wall between him and the universe.

“It’s nothing great. I just work odd jobs from time to time. You know, like a day laborer? That’s what I am, I guess. No mysteries there.”

“Like, construction work and stuff?”

“Yeah. Not just that. Sometimes I’m just covering the odd shift at some plant or restaurant or whatnot.”

 “I can’t fucking picture you working construction.”

“Why not?”

“You’re like, so freaking tiny.”

“We’re the exact same size you moron. At least I got abs.”

“You do?”

A shift, the weight leaving his belly, and there’s some grunting until the guy is kneeling near Yoongi’s head. Yoongi props himself up on his elbows and just stares, vaguely confused, before grabbing the guy’s wrist as he lifts the helm of his shirt.

“Don’t strip on a river bank. I believe you. Congrats, you got abs.”

“You don’t seem that impressed.”

“I’m very impressed. I bet they’re great abs. They could go on TV, you know, start a career.”

Kihyun points at him, face very serious.

“You suck.”

The tone is definite and Yoongi grins, until the guy pushes him back down, resuming his position on his stomach. He doesn’t stay quiet long.

“I’m hungry.”

“Me too.”

“Let’s go in a bit, yeah?”

Yoongi hums, his fingers finding their way back into the guy’s hair, stroking gently. They don’t go in a bit. They don’t go at all, really, not until the night air gets too cold for their light clothes, and they have to trudge home on empty bellies. But the soft lull that had descended upon them after those last words had been too nice to break, the sound of the small waves lulling them into a lethargy that had their limbs growing heavy and minds fuzzier still. It had been a grave decision, to move even just an inch. It had taken an icy wind and the threat of the last train to put them into motion, pushing and pulling at each other.

 

**3.**

“It’s funny.”

“What is?”

“I still don’t think of you by your name.”

“You think of me?”

“I guess.”

They’re lying in the dark again; it seems that it’s all they do, really, staring at darkened skies or darker ceilings, propped on a bed or down in the grass. It’s okay. It’s nice. It doesn’t matter.

“Are you thinking about my amazing abs?”

“With each breath that I take.”

Something sharp jabs him in the ribs and Yoongi hisses in mock-hurt as he goes to retaliate, lifting his arm quick as lightning, too quick, maybe, as the guy recoils, something flashing in his face akin to fear. Yoongi freezes.

“Shit, sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not, though.”

“It’s just reflexes.”

There’s a weight in the air, a weight of unspoken words and uneasy truths; the guy does not quite meet Yoongi’s eyes and the latter stays quiet as his stomach fills with lead.

“I’m–“

“It’s cool. Just, don’t startle me, yeah? You know. I’m always kind of on edge. That’s sort of hard-wired into me.”

Yoongi nods, settling back against the mattress. Slowly, it seems like time starts flowing again, heaviness lifting off his chest as the guy wordlessly scoots closer to the center of the bed, just like he did time and time again. So Yoongi turns on his side, sliding an arm around a narrow waist, tucking the guy closer, letting his body put in gestures what his mind cannot put into words. He knows then, that the bruises may have faded but they were never merely skin-deep, the hurt and fear they brought carved deep into brittle bones.


	4. Night and Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yoongi suffers a chance encounter, Kihyun opening up leads to some things, but more importantly, Namjoon gets new wheels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a bit frustrated with this chapter cause for some reason it was a hard mess to write but at the same time if I don't put it out there I don't think I'll ever get past it so THERE IT IS. You've been warned. You can now come yell at me about it on [twitter](https://twitter.com/BlanquetteAO3), go wild.

**1.**

“Okay, so what about him?”

The guy is lounging with him behind the register, which is new. Yoongi is sitting on his stool, hands grabbing the edge of it between his knees, spinning slowly from left to right. The guy is leaning against the counter, chin propped up in his palms, and Yoongi stares at the back of his head, at his hair getting slightly too long, at his narrow shoulders. It’s a bit strange, a bit too cozy. The counter that used to stand between them wasn’t just a physical barrier, and something deep had shifted once they’d removed it.

“Yoongi?”

“Mh?”

Kihyun is looking back at him, an eyebrow raised, and Yoongi drags his stare towards the customer crouching in front of the snacks. It feels as if he’s watching the scene unfold from a distant plane, static blurring image and sound, edges dulled; he’s watching two strangers playing at family, spinning stories about the walk-on roles in their lives. He isn’t sure how their own story will end; he isn’t sure he wants to know. He speaks, and his mouth feels full of yarn.

“College kid on a rager. Gonna regret the hangover tomorrow but it’s already too late and he doesn’t care anyway, he fucked up big time on his last exam, and, oh, fuck, shit.”

The college kid turns around just as Yoongi throws himself off his stool, crouching behind Kihyun’s legs. The guy looks down at him with raised eyebrows, and Yoongi gestures from his hiding spot, hoping the frantic waving of his arms translates well enough. _I’m not here. I never was._

“Smooth,” Kihyun mouths at him while Yoongi answers with the universal sign for _shut the fuck up_.

A slow grin spreads on the guy’s face as he looks at something – some _one_ – over the counter. There’s a throat clearing from somewhere above Yoongi’s head and he crawls closer to Kihyun’s legs as the other straightens. He can almost feel the amusement radiating from the guy and weirdly, this somehow placates him, a bubbly feeling sputtering in his chest that has him wanting to giggle in a fit of childish excitement. He bites on his fist instead, listening to the voices overhead.

“Hello.”

“Hi.”

“You… you work here?”

“Good guess.”

“Sorry. It’s just. You’re not wearing the uniform?”

“It’s just a vest, really. A very ugly one, too.”

“Oh, yeah. I guess it is.”

Yoongi can hear the hesitation in the kid’s voice and the soft thump of something being put on the counter.

“I’ll just take this.”

“Okay.”

Kihyun looks down at the register with a frown then, gestures slow as he takes up the barcode scanner.

“You’re not… you’re not ringing me up?”

“Well see, I would, but I’m new here and haven’t quite got the hang of it just yet. Give me a second.”

“Oh, okay, sure.”

The kid is polite. The kid is _still_ polite, and suddenly Yoongi doesn’t feel like giggling anymore. It’s a relief when Kihyun finally figures out the cash register, when there’s parting greetings and retreating footsteps, when the jingle of the door tells him the kid has left. He stays on the floor then, crouching on his haunches, staring ahead at the mess of chargers and snacks and notebooks he and his colleagues keep under the counter. Kihyun doesn’t tell him to get up. Kihyun sits cross-legged next to him instead and presses cold fingers to the side of his neck. Yoongi hisses.

“You’re fucking lucky I know how to handle registers.”

“Took you long enough, though.”

“This one is _ancient_.”

Yoongi has a half-smile but there’s no real emotion behind it; he’s still staring ahead and the strange feeling pressing on his chest makes a home in the silence stretching between them. There’s tentative fingers then, tapping at his knee, asking for attention, and Yoongi wills his gaze to turn on Kihyun. The guy is looking at him through his too-long bangs, face carefully blank, lips parting on a question asking for too big an answer.

“So… Who was that?”

“He’s just… a friend. Someone I used to know.”

“Alright. Did you run over his cat or something? What’s with the hiding?”

“It just. It would be weird.”

“Yeah, cause what you did is just so darn regular.”

It could sting but Kihyun’s tone is light as he pulls on Yoongi’s arm until the latter stumbles into him, and Yoongi lets himself fall into his chest. The guy smells like Yoongi’s laundry detergent and the hoodie he’s wearing is Yoongi’s own and he’s warm, always warm. It’s easy, then. Yoongi closes his eyes against the light, lets himself be pulled in by the appealing shelter of darkness and the comfort of a steady heartbeat. He parts his lips and the words tumble out.  

“He’s a friend. Was. But it feels like he’s part of a whole other lifetime and I don’t really wanna face that right now.”

“The lifetime Namjoon’s from?”

“Yeah. But Namjoon’s just. He doesn’t look like much but he won’t let himself be shaken off. I tried. He just keeps coming back. And he brings _tea._ ”

“Well, he does have octopus arms, that must help.”

“Must be it.”

Kihyun snorts, a ripple in his chest that has Yoongi burrowing closer. It’s a bit strange, he thinks, how starved of human touch they both seem. Yoongi wonders which feeling Kihyun is putting behind the fingers that cards through his hair, behind the arm that rests easily in the curve of his waist. Surely this is odd, a behavior that befits neither friends nor lovers but something in between. Yet this is okay, this is fine, really. Nothing in Yoongi’s life has ever fallen quite how it should have.

“Kihyun.”

“Mh?”

“We need to cut your hair.”

 

  **2.**

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

It’s a bit funny, how the guy keeps his eyes closed through it all. Yoongi is handy with scissors and the silky strands of Kihyun’s dark hair soon litter the creamy bathroom tiles.

“I’ve always cut my own hair. I know what I’m doing.”

“Do you though?”

Yoongi laughs, tugs a bit harshly at the hair on Kihyun’s nape, earning himself a rude gesture.

“Too late to back out now anyway.”

“If you mess me up I swear I’ll end you.”

A roll of his eyes, and Yoongi pushes the guy’s head slightly forward to better see what he’s doing. The bathroom is tiny and cramped, badly lit, and, well, he might be used to cutting his own hair but it’s slightly different to do it for someone else. He falls into a rhythm soon enough, the snipping of the scissors the only noise to be heard. Once his hands grow assured his mind wanders, expands in and out of himself like a wave. He’s both floating far above and anchored deep down, hyperaware of Kihyun’s soft hair under his fingers, of the low hums he lets out, sometimes, when Yoongi unnecessarily lets his nails gently scratch at his scalp; yet it’s something else entirely that occupies him as the feeling of slight discomfort seated low in his stomach finally resolves itself into a shape he knows well: the side of Jimin’s face.

It had been him that night, unmistakably, frame filled out and angular but him all the same, and Yoongi had done nothing but hide. It had been idiotic, but what else was there to be done? Their break hadn’t entailed anything dramatic. They were friends, and then they weren’t. As Yoongi’s tenuous grasp on himself had slipped so they had drifted, farther and farther apart until Jimin was more a memory than a tangible presence in Yoongi’s bleary life. No one was really at fault, there was no needed apologies nor closure to be had. And yet Yoongi had hid, because, what do you say to a stranger who used to know you so well?

“Yoongi?”

“Mh?”

“You’re still focusing, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You better be.”

Kihyun’s voice brings him back, him and old questions too. He clears his throat, brushes back Kihyun’s shortened hair and thinks he looks good with his forehead exposed. And then he asks.

“Do you have any friends?”

“What? Have you met me? Of course I have friends. I’m a delight.”

“Like, close friends? How many?”

Kihyun opens one eye, then the other, looking at Yoongi through the mirror he’s seated in front of before gliding over his own reflection.

“Oh, I look pretty good. It’s way shorter.”

“Yeah, that usually happens when you get a haircut. It’s right there in the name, too.”

Kihyun grimaces, brings his face closer to the mirror, turning this way and that with a satisfied grin.

“I have maybe two close friends, I guess? The rest are just, work friends.”

Somehow this isn’t what Yoongi wants to hear, and yet he doesn’t know why. It isn’t misguided jealousy nor possessiveness. Or maybe it is, the realization that you’re not as important or irreplaceable as you thought you were, just one amongst others. More than that, though, is that Kihyun sometimes still feels as if Yoongi dreamed him up, that outside of Yoongi’s waking hours, outside the time they spend together, he doesn’t really exist. And it is strange, then, imagining him interact with strangers, strangers who know much more about him than Yoongi does.

“What is it?”

“What?”

“You look weird.”

“It’s nothing. I Just. I need to get out more.

“Yeah, you do.”

Yoongi hums, taking off the towel they draped around Kihyun’s shoulders to shelter his clothes. He doesn’t miss it, though, the sharp stare the guy bores into him through the mirror. There’s something thrumming in the air, a tension that wasn’t there a minute ago, and Yoongi’s spine is going to snap under it. He jumps when his phone vibrates on the counter, latches onto it like a drowning man to a lifeline. But the respite it offers is all but short-lived.

_Jimin said he saw you, and that you hid from him._

_Are you serious?_

_You’re so fucking stupid Min Yoongi lmao_

_Fuck off, Kim Namjoon_

_Wanna check out my new ride?_

_No?_

_I’ll be over in 20_

 

**3.**

Namjoon looks bright and happy, dimpled smile peeking over the wooly scarf wrapped around his neck. Yoongi stares, and stares some more.

“Namjoon, it’s… it’s a second-hand bicycle. Just, how broke are you?”

“Sweet though, yeah? Want a ride?”

“On your used bicycle.”

“Yeah.”

The smile doesn’t dim and Yoongi wants to turn it off. But the alternative waiting for him three stories up is not something he wants to face quite yet, so he shrugs, burying his hands even deeper in the pockets of the winter coat he’s bundled into. Cold had descended upon the city like a wrathful ghoul and it is terrible but it fits, too, somehow. Everything feels easier in the lazy days of summer. Cold is better for screwing up. So he shrugs, gesturing for Namjoon to get on his stupid bike.

“This is so freaking moronic.”

Namjoon just laughs, and it’s a miracle they haven’t yet veered off into the river bank, unbalanced as he is by the weight of Yoongi sitting on the rear-carrier. It feels like high school, really, Yoongi gripping Namjoon’s waist as he tries to keep himself steady, except that Namjoon is taller now, broader too, and he doesn’t struggle as much. The cold wind bites at their faces and Yoongi closes his eyes for a beat, burying his face into Namjoon’s coat. It’s almost scarier this way, the darkness somehow accentuating the wobbles of the bike. Yoongi feels as if he’s lost at sea. His grip tightens on Namjoon and the latter slows down, taking up a leisurely pace just as he did back then, too. Drawing out the suspended hour between school and home as much as he could, nothing expected and nothing owed and they could just be themselves. It’s silent then, Namjoon maybe lost in the same kind of memories. It doesn’t last.

“So, what was that with Jimin?”

Yoongi makes a painful sound and presses his face further against Namjoon’s back. He feels his laugh more than he hears it, rippling in his chest. Namjoon is warm, just like Kihyun. Yoongi is the only one who’s hands are held by ghosts.

“Why didn’t he say something?”

“I guess he thought it was embarrassing enough that he didn’t have to call you out on it. Saved you the awkwardness. Kid’s a treasure, really.”

“It’s just. I don’t know what I could have said to him. Hi. It’s me. I’m still a cashier. Life is amazing.”

That laugh again, and suddenly Yoongi is laughing too, because it’s funny, it is, and he opens his eyes, looking back at the river flowing downhill. Maybe it isn’t as dramatic as he made it out to be. Maybe it’s just funny.

“Was he annoyed?”

“Nah, I guess he understood. I don’t think he would know what to say to you either. You guys kinda drifted.”

“Kihyun rang him up. He doesn’t even work there.”

A snort, Namjoon veering a bit too much to the right; Yoongi’s arms tensing around him.

“Bedmate just went along with it, uh.”

“He goes along with pretty much anything, honestly.”

Namjoon hums, taking a wide berth on the path, zigzagging from left to right at a lazy pace.

“It’s a nice day.”

Yoongi looks up, cheek still pressed against Namjoon’s warm coat. The air is crisp, the sky a steely blue, no clouds in sight. It is a nice day, sharp and bright and maybe not so terrible.

“Should I talk to him?”

“Jimin? I don’t know. Only if you have something to say, I guess.”

“Does he miss me?”

“Do you miss him?”

It’s a question he never asked himself. He looks within, and he can’t find a Jimin-shaped hole.

“I don’t know. That time feels really removed. Or I feel removed from that time, I don’t know. Like it’s someone else’s. I don’t really know how we would fit together, now.”

“Well, you won’t know unless you try. I think he wouldn’t mind getting to know you again.”

“Even after that whole fuck up at the store?”

“I think he was just stunned you still exist in the same universe as him. That would be a great opening, though. Hey. Sorry I tried to hide from you, and failed. Like the moron I really am.”

Yoongi laughs then, pinching Namjoon’s side in what he hopes is enough to hurt. There’s a shriek, a jerk of the handlebar that almost sends them sprawling, playful insults and loud laughing. It’s simple, and maybe everything else can be, too, if just for a little while.

 

**4.**

Kihyun is sprawled on the couch when Yoongi gets home, lying on his back, holding a paperback in front of his face in what must be the most uncomfortable reading position there is. He doesn’t seem to mind.

“What are you reading?”

“The house of the dead.”

“Sounds… Sounds great.”

Kihyun snorts, putting the book down on his chest, craning his neck to watch Yoongi still standing in the doorway.

“It’s yours. You didn’t read it?”

“Half of those books are impulse purchases I never got around to actually read. Makes me look smart to have them lying around, though.”

He steps out of his shoes, hesitating only half a second before shuffling over to the couch. He plucks the book from Kihyun’s chest, sitting down when the latter turns on his side to make room for him.

“Prison camp in Siberia? Sounds rough.”

Kihyun yawns, stretching, his face scrunching up. It’s enough to distract Yoongi from the paperback and he stares a beat too long. He wants to touch, but he doesn’t, and Kihyun must know. There’s a sly smile on his lips and he curls his body around Yoongi, picking the book out of his hands and flipping the pages until he gets to the dog-eared one he’s looking for.

“Yeah, it is. It’s a good book, though. Great quotes. Look.”

He thrusts the book in his hands and Yoongi looks down to where Kihyun is pointing. _What cannot man live through! Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him._

 _Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything._ Yoongi stares until the words blur in front of him. It’s in Kihyun’s voice that he read them, lending them a weight that almost hurt, and his own words feel too thick for his throat when he lets them out.

“What did you get accustomed to?”

“What?”

Yoongi looks back at Kihyun, face carefully blank; the latter offers a wry smile, lets himself fall back on the cushions. He plucks the book from Yoongi’s grasp, reading through the page, flipping to the next one, before he puts it down on his chest again, slender fingers drawing lazy patterns on the cover. He closes his eyes and Yoongi keeps staring.

“Fear? Pain, I guess. It’s very true, I think. Animals, if you hurt them, they fight back or run away. Humans, sometimes, they just take it. And they get used to it.”

“You left, though.”

“Yeah. Only took me years and some cute weirdo in a convenience store offering up his house.”

There’s a beat of silence before Kihyun speaks again, a silence of the heavy kind, the one that nestles against narrow chests and drowns out thoughts in messy heads.

“I think the worst thing is, everyone else gets used to it, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know. Like the friends you grow up with? It’s just how things are. That guy’s house is a dump. This dude has to work nights after school. That other one gets the crap beaten out of him on a daily basis. No one really questions it. At first it’s cause it’s the only thing you know, you don’t even think there can be an alternative. And then you just get used to it. Oh, I know.”

He sits up then, an edge of frenzy to his gestures when he flips through the book once more, eyes quickly scanning the pages until he finds what he wants.

“I know that gulags in Siberia have nothing to do with us but that fucking guy knew what he was talking about.”

His index is pointing at somewhere on the bottom of the page and Yoongi reads slowly, taking in each words as if they were told by Kihyun himself. And maybe they are, maybe it is easier this way, for him, letting some long-dead writer from a faraway land do the talking for him.

_Often a man endures for several years, submits and suffers the cruelest punishments, and then suddenly breaks out over some minute trifle, almost nothing at all._

“Guess I had reached my limit, you know. I guess one day it’s just. You have enough.”

Yoongi nods. He doesn’t know, though. Yoongi didn’t break out, he shut down. Slowly, over months and years, maybe. Steadily worn down by something he couldn’t quite name, until there was not enough left to make a whole. And there’s truth, in what Kihyun is saying. No one really questioned it. Yoongi himself didn’t question it, not until Namjoon burst in his apartment and decided that it was enough. So he nods, and he looks back at Kihyun stretched out on his couch. He looks open and vulnerable like this, something in his face that didn’t use to be there, and there’s that thrumming again, that tension sizzling against his bones. Maybe it is okay to touch, now, it certainly feels like it, so he does. Slowly, so as not to startle, allowing for escape. Fingers spread out over thin collarbones, tracing the slope of a nose and the curve of a mouth, loosing themselves in dark hair, gripping lightly; the softest of touches.

Kihyun doesn’t move. Hums low under his breath, eyes fluttering close. But he’s waiting for something and Yoongi isn’t one to deprive him; there’s barely an hesitation when he shifts, leaning closer until their lips touch. It’s soft and barely there, he scoots back almost immediately, heart hammering, but things are simple sometimes and there’s a hand at the back of his neck, bringing him back.

Things are simple sometimes, even if just for a little while. Yoongi can stop thinking. Again he’s lost at sea. Again, it is okay.

 

**5.**

_Hey. Sorry I tried to hide from you. And failed._

_It’s fine_

_Is it?_

_Honestly it was sort of hilarious????? After my ego got over it._

_Well, Namjoon certainly seemed to think so_

_You saw him? Did he make you check out his new ride?_

_…yeah_

_It’s sweet_

_It’s a used bicycle._

_A sweet used bicycle_

_Sure._

_Wanna meet up sometimes?_

_Yeah, okay._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for commenting and leaving kudos, you have no idea how much it means to me.


	5. Sometime, near the ocean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yoongi meets a friend, or maybe he doesn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been a while! I'm sorry. It was a bit hard to get back into it after three months of no writing. I hope this chapter will satisfy those amongst you who are still waiting :') Thank you so much for your patience.

**1.**

Things are simple sometimes. Not always, though, and Yoongi stares at the street outside, through the glass panels of the storefront. Sometimes things are heavy, a weight sitting on his chest, clammy hands and eyes going out of focus, turning cars and people into a blur of colors and sounds, not enough to make a whole. He had said _okay, let’s meet there_. He had said, _I don’t need you to come, it’s just an old friend_. But his hand is closing on empty and there’s no dark eyes there to ground him, and so the thorny thing inside him grows and grows, pushing under his skin with each minute that drags by.

Jimin is late. Or Yoongi is early, he’s not sure. Neither really matters.

The light coming through the windows of the coffee shop is too bright. The chattering of the customers too loud, and Yoongi startles when the blender goes off, drilling a headache into his skull. He puts his head in his hands, fingers covering his eyes. Deep breaths, he was once told. Deep breaths, and in the dark, everything will get better.

But there’s a tap on his shoulder before anything can happen, a chair scrapping back, and when he looks, there’s Jimin sitting on the other side of his small table. Jimin with a smile on his plump lips, turning his eyes into crescents. This much didn’t change, and a pit opens in Yoongi’s stomach. Jimin’s a remnant of different times, countless smiles and crescent eyes turned towards a hundred Yoongis who do not exist anymore. He stares, and Jimin’s voice didn’t change either.

“Sorry, I’m the one who set the time and I’m late.”

Yoongi swallows, forces out a smile he hopes genuine enough, and maybe Jimin doesn’t notice his discomfort. Or maybe he does, and maybe he chooses to ignore it.

“It’s okay. I haven’t been here long.”

“Did you order yet?”

Yoongi shakes his head and Jimin stands up, taking his order and sauntering off to the counter. Yoongi takes this time to try and calm down. Riding behind Namjoon on the bike, it had seemed so easy. Just like old times, two friends hunched over coffee, swapping stories of no consequences. But Jimin isn’t Namjoon and Yoongi has no stories for him, nothing to give this ghost of a time past that knew a him who disappeared and was never found.

Jimin comes back with two drinks to an empty table.

 

**2.**

_This time he didn’t find it funny._

_Why did you leave like this?_

_Yoongi? You okay?_

_Come on. Don’t make me come over._

_I’m fine. I just wasn’t ready. Tell him I’m sorry._

_Tell him yourself, you dick._

**3.**

Kihyun doesn’t ask, when he sees him come in, not an hour after he left. He puts his book down, another one from Yoongi’s collection. _Kyoko_ , the title reads, and he remembers, he remembers this one, or just a line from it, really. _She didn’t know that the future is losing what you have now, and seeing the birth of something you don’t have yet_. Maybe that’s where Yoongi is now, in between loss and nascency; but there’s nothing yet, nothing, and he doesn’t know on what to stand.

Kihyun doesn’t ask. Instead, he says, “let’s go somewhere.”

And so they do.

Kihyun choses the sea. The one on the other side, four hours away in a too cold bus, the a/c turned on high and no way to turn it off. So Kihyun throws his jacket over them, the one he was wearing the day he moved in, too-big and worn, but cozy like an old friend. He snuggles underneath, his small hand grabbing blindly until it finds what it’s looking for, Yoongi’s cold fingers tucked inside his sleeve. It’s not long until he’s a dead weight against Yoongi’s side, breath fanning on the other’s skin, fingers slipping out of Yoongi’s grasp.

Yoongi rests his head against the window, closes his eyes against the scenery moving behind the glass, blurry trees and a road he wishes would never end. Kihyun feels warm against his side, warm and real, and Yoongi clings to this feeling as he begins to drift, body melting into the seat, breaking apart with each vibration of the engine. Once again, light and dust and ashes, body cold and mind reeling. Jimin’s face and Namjoon’s words, a deep black on a bright screen; Kihyun, Kihyun he kissed once and never again, and the night falling on the river, waves crowned in artificial light. Greasy fingers and bruised collarbones, laughing high-schoolers riding a dinky bicycle, lost adults doing the same, much later, and when did it happen, the loss?

Kihyun shifts, hums low under his breath, and it’s enough to bring Yoongi back, eyes snapping open, scattered fragments of himself coming back to him in waves. On the other side of the glass the scenery has changed, houses replacing trees and high-rise buildings hindering the horizon. Kihyun is still asleep against him, hair falling into his face half-buried in Yoongi’s shoulder. They’re here. They reached the sea.

 

**4.**

They sit on the sand close together, Kihyun’s army jacket draped around them both; Yoongi is cold, always cold. As night fell Gwangalli bridge lit up, spanning the horizon line over the sea, light and metal bright against the night sky. Yoongi stares, and finally, he can breathe.

Next to him Kihyun is drawing patterns in the sand, nonsensical shapes mirroring the movement of the waves, liquid forms he erases with a sweep of his hand, drawing over the leveled sand again and again. Yoongi is waiting on him to ask, but Kihyun only takes what he is given. And so Yoongi starts talking, eyes trained on the waves lapping a few feet away from them, smoothing the sand again and again. Kihyun’s drawing hand slows down and Yoongi takes it as a sign that he is listening, and his voice grows more assured.

“I blew it. I left without saying anything when he was ordering. I’m still not sure why. I didn’t know what to say to him, and I think he thought he was meeting someone else, someone who doesn’t really exist anymore. Namjoon said he probably wouldn’t mind getting to know me again, but people always have expectations. It felt like too heavy. Too much work. I don’t know. I felt bad. It sucked. Namjoon’s mad.”

“Do you want to be known?”

“What?”

Kihyun stopped drawing, and he’s looking over at the bridge, at the black expense of water underneath it, a faraway look in his face that doesn’t really suit him. There’s a hint of sadness there, and Yoongi feels the urge to draw him against his chest, hide him where it’s safe. He doesn’t. His hands stay folded in his sleeves.

“Do you want to be known? It seems like you don’t.”

“What do you mean?”

Kihyun shrugs, and when he turns to Yoongi there’s a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. It’s a new smile, looking very old on Kihyun’s face. A tired smile Yoongi hates.

“We’ve been living together and I don’t really know anything about you, either.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“Would you have told me?”

Yoongi shifts, uneasy. There’s a dog barking somewhere on the beach, a couple laughing a bit to the side, eating out of a pizza box. He stares at them, and he knows, now. He always thought Kihyun was the mystery. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he was the one hiding, under confused emotions and too-long sleeves. Maybe it was easier to scrutinize the people he found under fluorescent lights deep in the night instead of looking inside himself, maybe it was easier to spin stories about them instead of telling his. Maybe he didn’t know, either, that the future is losing what you have now, and seeing the birth of something you don’t have yet.

Maybe it is time to let the hours flow again, time to find a way out of the morass he found himself stuck in, this midway between past and future. Maybe something needed to be born that could finally give him what he missed. 

“I could tell you now. Maybe. Maybe it’s fine if it’s you.”

The smile shifts, something real seeping into it that Yoongi wants to kiss. He doesn’t, either, his whole body locked in a tense wait. Kihyun brings his knees up against his chest, the jacket falling off one of his shoulders. He doesn’t seem to mind, his fingers finding their way back into the sand. He draws a spiral, slowly, and then, without looking at Yoongi, he starts to ask. About his life, before. His childhood. His family, and did he have any pets? Was he happy. What happened, later. Is there really no one else, beside Namjoon. Because how can someone become so isolated?

Easily, Yoongi tells him. One day the emptiness inside you spills over and drives everyone away. Because it is hard, staying with someone who is disappearing. You could see through me, Yoongi tells him. I wasn’t there anymore. Locked inside himself and no one to knock on a door sealed shut. No one, until Namjoon, and it takes a special kind of strength to force help onto someone who isn’t asking.

Yoongi speaks and Kihyun listens. He listens in silence and the one spiral turns into flowing shapes and waves of sand he doesn’t smooth over. There are tears in Yoongi’s words and it is something ugly he is taking out of himself, uneasy truths and painful memories. But hope, too, as Yoongi did get better; but better doesn’t mean well and there’s still only Namjoon, and he’s still running away, and the light still hurt his eyes.

Yoongi stops speaking and his throat feels raw. The couple is long gone, and the night deepened still, lending a depth almost physical to the darkness around them. It’s colder, too, and a shiver goes through him when he realizes how cold this really means. Kihyun gets closer, then, sneaking an arm around his waist, rearranging the jacket as if its flimsy barrier could really keep the chill at bay. Yoongi feels tired. Empty, too, his mind a deserted succession of hallways he built for things to regret. There’s nothing there anymore, everything out here in the open, and he wishes he could erase it, burry it in the sand and smooth it over with the palm of his hand, until the day the sea comes to swallow everything.

“Let’s go.”

“Where?”

Kihyun stands up, holding out his hand, and it’s uncanny, Yoongi thinks in passing, that he is still here.

“Let’s go rest somewhere.” 

 

**5.**

Yoongi feels like a runaway, even if he is not exactly sure what it is he’s running away from. Himself, maybe.

Busan is so different from Seoul, and yet exactly the same. Busy streets and neon lights and Kihyun leading him by the hand. He doesn’t know where they are going and yet he doesn’t care. He trusts him, Yoongi realizes then, he trusts Kihyun completely, even when they know so little about each other. Not anymore, though, maybe. Yoongi spilled over, words and tears and all the ugliness within him.

Kihyun stops at a flimsy motel in a side street, and the tired lady who rents them a room barely acknowledge them. It’s better this way. A parenthesis where no one else exists.

The room is small, without a window, an old model of cathode-ray television sitting on a table in the corner. Kihyun disappears in the bathroom as soon as they enter, and Yoongi goes to lay on the bed, his coat still on, feet dangling from the edge and eyes staring at the ceiling. He should say something, maybe, but he feels empty of words, empty of everything else, and he just wants to rest, really, sleep for days, a little death that would be welcome.

Kihyun joins him soon enough, and he’s only wearing a tank top and boxer shorts, and he looks so thin, so thin, like he could disappear at any moment, turn to ashes with just a touch. Yoongi rolls on his side to watch him, watch his narrow chest rise and fall with each breath, his dark hair fanning out on the white sheets, his sharp eyes boring into his.

“Thank you, for telling me.”

“Yeah, well. You don’t think I’m too fucked up now, do you?”

A smile, familiar now, eyes disappearing into crescents.

“Nah, you’re fine. I have a high tolerance for fuck-ups though.”

“So I’m a fuck-up now?”

“Didn’t you just say you were? Your words, not mine.”

Playful words and a light smile, and a warmth that seeps back into his bones. Yoongi smiles, and Kihyun turns serious suddenly, watching him. They are a breath away from each other, still not touching, Yoongi disappearing into too many layers, Kihyun’s bony frame almost bare against the white sheets.

“I’m not kidding, though. I’ll take everything.”

“What?”

Yoongi’s smile wanes under Kihyun’s sudden intensity, dark eyes made darker by the lack of light. There’s a shift in the air, something barely felt but tremendous in its effects. Yoongi stops breathing.

“I mean, what you told me, earlier. I’ll take it. Everything, it’s fine, you can unload. I have so much room if it’s you.”

Maybe Yoongi had forgotten what unconditional acceptance felt like. Kihyun had let himself inside the empty hallways of his mind and had started making a home there, and maybe, maybe he could show him more. Hallways always lead somewhere, after all.

Yoongi smiles then, and answers the pull in his stomach by grabbing Kihyun’s arm, pulling him closer, and he’s so light, his skin cool under Yoongi’s fingers. Kihyun’s the one to bridge the distance this time, a hand at the back of Yoongi’s neck, the other slipping under his many layers. His lips taste salty, and Kihyun kisses like the ocean breathes. Maybe his little death can wait, then; and so Yoongi lets his feelings rise.

 

**6.**

_I’m sorry._

_What am I supposed to do with sorrys? You ditched me. Do you know how stupid I felt holding those two useless cups of coffee? Very._

_I wasn’t ready._

_And now you are?_

_I think so. Do you wanna meet again?_

_I don’t know_

_At my place. Even if I run away I’ll be bound to come back eventually._

_I guess_

_Is that a yes?_

_Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just noticed this is way shorter than the other chapters lmao sorry. I need some buffering ;_;


	6. Waiting for Daybreak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some tension is released, Jimin finally makes an appearance and a decision is made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basically just picture Jimin as having the energy of a capybara and you're good to go. This time it's Kihyun's p.o.v, I wanted to flesh out his character a bit more, hope I did a satisfying job. 
> 
> It took me???? So goddamn long???? To write this chapter????? Also I wasn't very sure with the direction it was taking but I decided to embrace it cause since when do I have any grasp on my own stories anyway. 
> 
> Hope you'll enjoy!! Gear up for emotional boys, I might have overdid it slightly lmao

**1.**

There’s a storm brewing outside, greyish light filtering through windows rattled by a cold wind that won’t let up. Kihyun always liked those moments of anticipation, of waiting for the storm to break with his face pressed against the cold glass panes of a window; a nervous thrill thrumming in his belly, electricity running on his skin. It was exhilarating, when it would finally burst. Thunder and rain, primal sounds drowning out everything else, and he could imagine that the world was ending. He used to think it wouldn’t be so bad, an awesome end to a miserable life. It wouldn’t be so bad, and he used to watch the rain fall throughout the night, fingers pressed against bruised ribs, painful remnants left by hands that should have known how to love.

**2.**

There’s a storm brewing outside, but it is another kind of disaster that has his full attention.

“I think it can’t get anymore clean. Unless you drown it in acid, maybe.”

Yoongi sharply looks up from the coffee table he’s been rubbing with a damp washcloth for the past fifteen minutes. The tired paperbacks littering the living room have found their place on the shelf near the window, sorted by authors, no less, and Kihyun could probably see his reflection in the sparkling floors if he tried hard enough. Yoongi’s tiny apartment is spotless. Yoongi himself is a wreck.

“May I know what this is about?”

“Does it have to be about anything? Can’t I just want to clean this dump?”

“You never clean.”

“I so do.”

Kihyun shifts on the couch; he’s sitting cross-legged, back straight. Yoongi isn’t looking at him. Yoongi hasn’t really looked at him since they came back from the sea, as if the light Kihyun shown on him then had made him scurry back into the dark. There’s a new carefulness, stolen glances of assessment, and Yoongi on edge, puffing up like a startled cat at each endeavors of tenderness. Kihyun understands, or he tries to. Maybe it was easier to open up, far from here, in an unknown place with no landmarks. A blank slate that could be filled with anything, no consequences to be felt later as no ‘later’ would come to pass in this temporary place. Now, though. There were old habits waiting in the small apartment, old habits that wouldn’t leave room for a newfound vulnerability. Kihyun is thankful for the storm outside. The wind howls all the frustrations he cannot scream in Yoongi’s face.

“You said you would talk to me.”

There’s a sigh, Yoongi sitting back on his haunches as he folds the cleaning rag in his lap. He looks chastised, and Kihyun feels a stab of guilt. But he needs to push, or Yoongi will pull away, and Kihyun’s not sure he can follow where this path leads. There’s annoyance in Yoongi’s voice as he relents, as if Kihyun was treading where he shouldn’t, and so guilt morphs to resentment.

“Alright, okay. I just. Jimin’s coming.”

“Jimin. The one you abandoned.”

“I didn’t abandon him.”

“Fine, ditched in a coffee shop, same difference.”

Yoongi sends him a harsh look through his eyelashes, a small fire rising out of cold ambers. This, whatever it is, this is better than the frantic display of worry all that cleaning had really been about. Yoongi’s pushing back.

“Point taken. So, yeah, he’s coming. Soon. Today. So, I’m cleaning.”

Kihyun knows this. Throwing yourself bodily into anything that can offer a semblance of control, busying hands that would wring with worry if not, a bid at filling a mind prone to wander darker corners.

“Do you get it?” Yoongi asks him, and his dry tone leaves no room for doubt. There are thorns on Yoongi’s skin, snaring vines Kihyun painstakingly weeded returning with each pounding heartbeat. Were he to push, Kihyun could bleed.

“He’s coming _here_.”

And so he truly understands. Beyond the simple fact of meeting Jimin, the real issue is him standing here, in the sheltered space of Yoongi’s apartment, a space where few are allowed. A sanctuary, almost, holding in its heart the memory of his long fall from grace. A sanctuary that Kihyun would burn to the ground, if he ever could. Some things should be left to the past.   

“It’s going to be fine.”

“How do you know? He remembers a person entirely different from who I am now.”

“He probably already figured that one out. The old Yoongi wouldn’t have left him standing alone in a coffee shop.”

“Can you stop bringing that up?”

“Gonna milk it until I die.”

“Might be sooner than later, if you keep that up.”

Ire seeped into Yoongi’s tone and Kihyun knows he should back off, but there’s some twisted pleasure in pushing, prodding where it hurts, a pleasure born out of his own frustrations, frustrations that slowly build at Yoongi’s apathy, at his quiet insecurities and the too many things left unsaid. Maybe it’s the thunder finally breaking outside, filling the air with a tension heightening their own domestic storm, but Kihyun needs something to give way. He needs the world to end, and so he presses his face against the widow and spurs on the lightning.

 “You’re making a mountain out of nothing, he probably doesn’t give a fuck about any of that, he just wants to get to know you again.”

“You know what? You need to stop acting like you fucking know everything.”

Yoongi seethes, standing up abruptly, and the smile on Kihyun’s lips turns cold. Anger, then. Kihyun knows anger, he’s been on the receiving end of it often enough. The red hot one, that leaves searing pain into your bones, the cold, hard one, blue and purple and you’re on edge for days. The one that flares up inside you, strong and righteous, the one that carries you for a while, until it too dies under harsher words and stronger hands. Anger’s an old friend and Kihyun abruptly laughs. He’s not scared of it anymore.

“Yeah, well, you seem to know fuck all so someone has to pick up the slack.”

Yoongi’s fists tighten at his side and there’s a sneer; more yelling, too, words thrown about mindlessly through blood boiling in ears and pent-up frustrations kept in check for too long. But Kihyun heard it all before and sharpened himself like a knife; he knows where it hurts.

Yoongi was never one for words, though, and in a flurry of movements there’s a weight colliding with Kihyun’s chest, a weight that sends him reeling back into the couch with a familiar pain exploding on his skin. But he’d sworn, as he had left a familiar house in the middle of the night, he had sworn to himself, never again, and for the first time in his life, he retaliates.

There’s a voice somewhere, but he doesn’t listen, and his fist collides with something soft that breaks under harsh knuckles with a faint whimper. Cold fingers around his wrist, trying to hold him in place, a blur in front of his eyes, more pain ringing in his hand as he hits again, his own fault, he knows, and the voice again, this time cutting through the ringing in his ears.

“Kihyun, shit, stop, please, I’m sorry, Kihyun, hey, you alright?”

He blinks as the fog dissipates, eyes coming into focus again, leaving him staring into Yoongi’s face, Yoongi’s face who’s already turning purple in places, broken skin over his cheekbone where he was hit the hardest. There’s a voice at the back of his head, not the face, that’s where it shows, and people will start asking questions, and – and something gives way.

“Fuck, Yoongi, I’m sorry.”

There’s a small smile, tentative, one he’d hoped never to see again but it will have to suffice. The tension leaves Kihyun’s body in a breath; he feels boneless, his mind returning to inhabit a vacant shell, echoing of the storm that broke over them. So the world ended, and he has yet to know what’s to be born from the ashes.

“It’s okay, I kinda started it. Doesn’t hurt that much.”

“You’re sorta bleeding.”

“’Tis but a scratch.”

“Are you quoting the black knight at me?”

“Maybe. And you fucked up your hand, did no one tell you the skull is the hardest bone in the body? Go for the kidneys, next time.”

“Next time?”

Yoongi shrugs, sits properly on the couch while Kihyun stays thrown on his back. There’s a painful throbbing in his hand and Yoongi is right, his knuckles are already swelling, marred by an angry red.

“Can you walk me step-by-step through how we ended up like this.”

A snigger, and Yoongi shifts. He feels warm, against his side.

“We’re just. We’re just really bad at… Everything, I guess. Sometimes words fail.”

“I broke your face. You’re frustrating to no ends, but I shouldn’t have.”

“I kinda deserved it. One step forward and two steps back. That’s like, my credo.”

“Shit, Yoongi, no one ever deserves to get their face caved in.”

“Mh. I’m pretty sure some do.”

“Okay, maybe some. Not you.”

“And not you?”

“And, and not me, either.”

Yoongi smiles, the real, gummy one, and he looks beautiful like this, disheveled hair and busted cheekbone and all. Something falls into place, in Kihyun’s chest. Maybe Yoongi isn’t the only one plagued by ghosts. At least he’s trying, floundering as he is through morasses of fears and confused emotions, slowly making sense of it all. Kihyun had just been content to drift along in a sinking boat. His gaze drifts to the ceiling, a spotless expense of white where words can hang weightless.

“I thought I did.”

“What?”

“I thought I did deserve it. When it keeps happening, you end up thinking you did something to bring it on. So you try to be as quiet, as obedient as you can, but it doesn’t change anything. Takes a while to understand you’re not the problem, when you grow up in this kind of family. Sometimes, you never do. I spent so long erasing myself as much as I could I don’t even know who I really am.”

The cold fingers are back on his wrist, squeezing lightly, and Kihyun watches Yoongi with tired eyes holding too much sadness.

“You didn’t deserve it. You never did.”

“I know, now.”

“Bears repeating.”

“Yeah. Thanks. Sorry for breaking your face.”

Kihyun extends a hand, brushing soft fingers against Yoongi’s broken skin as the other closes his eyes. When he kisses him he tastes dark, metallic, an edge that wasn’t there before. So he goes deeper, traveling hands settling on cold skin and a slender waist; there’s a heavy sigh and the weight of Yoongi pressed against him but this time, it feels good to be caged. He remembers, then, the words he read before the storm; _light breaks where no sun shines_ , and they may be broken ghosts with glow-worms in their heads, but surely, they can make it through this night of theirs. _Light breaks on secret lots, on tips of thought where thoughts smell in the rain_ , and as rain had been falling, something gave and something bloomed.

 

**3.**

“Are you guys kidding me? That’s not how you – What were you thinking? Have you two lost your minds?”

Jimin is fussy, Kihyun learns soon enough. Soft features in a warm face and he would be easy to disregard if not for the sharp looks of assessment he throws his way sometimes, betraying a quick mind of unknown depths. He’s got Yoongi cornered against the counter of their small bathroom, applying an antiseptic they didn’t know they had on Yoongi’s cheekbone. It doesn’t look that bad, now that Kihyun is properly looking at it. He probably landed that punch more by accident than anything else.

“I didn’t come here to play nurse.”

Yoongi doesn’t flinch; there’s a small smile playing at his lips, and he’s obedient under Jimin’s hands. Kihyun is watching from the doorway, where Jimin told him to wait for his turn. He was surprisingly bossy, once the shock of seeing the state they were in had faded.

“You’re good at it, though.”

“Hang around Taehyung long enough, you’ll probably learn how to set bones.”

“You guys are still friends?”

“Yeah, people usually don’t make a habit of disappearing.”

It’s barely a reproach, but Yoongi winces all the same. There’s good humor in Jimin’s tone, though, and he lightly pushes at Yoongi’s shoulder, letting him know it’s alright, no hard feelings. He didn’t come here for explanations, either. He simply came because he’d missed his friend, and Kihyun wonders if Jimin’s warmth will be enough for Yoongi to understand that.

It’s not long until Kihyun feels like an intruder, but as he slowly inches towards the living room, Jimin turns to him with an accusing finger.

“You. Where do you think you’re going? Show me your hand.”

“It’s. It’s fine, really.”

“Sit.”

Kihyun does. Jimin has warm hands and a gentle touch, and Kihyun is reminded of Yoongi’s cold fingers around his wrist. Yoongi’s always cold, burrowing under blankets and too many layers of clothes; and maybe that too is a barrier, something more to stand between him and the world.

“What kind of idiot goes for the face? Hit the kidneys!”

“Are you giving me advice on how to beat-up your friend more efficiently?”

“No, I’m giving you advice on how to beat-up _people_ more efficiently. If you _have_ to go for the face, aim for the nose at least.”

Jimin is fussy, and Kihyun decides then that he likes him. He was never one for strangers touching him, and maybe Jimin senses it, or maybe there’s always been a carefulness to him, something soft and barely there, something easing. It’s a wonder then, how unnerved Yoongi had been at the idea of meeting him, when he had so obviously forgiven everything. But maybe that’s it, maybe Yoongi doesn’t want forgiveness. Maybe, for once, he wants to be held accountable for the hurt he caused, while he himself was hurting. Shame, Kihyun recognizes. Shame and guilt; and there’s no shedding them without some sort of trial. But Yoongi isn’t going to ask. So, Kihyun does.

“Is it true you weren’t mad?”

“Mh, sorry what? Mad about what?”

Jimin looks up from inspecting his knuckles,

“About him dropping out of your life.”

Kihyun inclines his head towards Yoongi, still backed-up against the counter, looking at them like a rabbit caught in headlights. But he makes no move to shut Kihyun up, and when Jimin glances at him with a pensive look on his face, his eyes are asking for an answer. Jimin looks back at Kihyun, eyes trained on his swollen hand, but his fingers still, and his voice is softer when he speaks.

“I don’t generally get mad.”

“So you felt nothing?”

“No, it…”

Another look at Yoongi, slightly sheepish this time, his plump lips caught between his teeth.

“I just… Yeah, well, alright, it always feels shitty when someone disappears on you. A friend, I mean. I guess… I guess I was a little hurt, yeah.”

Kihyun nods, and the silence stretches between them, heavy with the words that still need to be said. Jimin sighs, dropping Kihyun’s hand and turning to Yoongi fully, his face set in a gentle expression, as if to soften the words he was about to say.

“A lot mad. And maybe a lot hurt, too. I thought our friendship didn’t have any value, to you, even after all these years, that it wasn’t worth the effort, you know. It can only feel shitty. But life goes on and mine did too, and then I wasn’t mad anymore, and you know, after a while only the good things remain, I guess. I’m not…”

“I’m sorry.”

Jimin smiles, shaking his head.

“It’s fine. I didn’t come here for apologies. I get that it was a hard time for you. And I’m sorry, too. This goes both ways. I knew that you were drifting, and I did nothing to bring you back. I didn’t help. You didn’t ask, but sometimes, you shouldn’t have to. I failed you, too.”

Something sad gives way in Yoongi’s face as Jimin takes a step towards him, treading on shared blame and guilt and shame. It’s then, that Kihyun turns away. Some things are not meant to be witnessed.

 

**4.**

There’s soft music playing on the old stereo taking up space at the foot of the bed where Kihyun is lying. He turned off the lights, closed his eyes, and he’s listening. _We all hate our own lives_ , it says, and Kihyun wonders if it’s true, if it is hate or exhaustion or sadness, that leads people to fade out and disappear like Yoongi did; or to endure, almost out of spite, while being grounded into dust. Like he, himself, did. _Tell me a story, does it feel right?_ But what story is there to tell? One of injustice and pain and sadness, of painful loneliness. One that should be forgotten, maybe, left into the night as day breaks. A sanctuary he should burn down, a story he should free himself of. There’s a noise at his ear, of a door opening and careful steps on an old floor. The bed dips and he turns, slipping an arm around the body settling next to his own, breathing in the now familiar scent of Yoongi too-warm clothes. He lets out a small sigh as cold fingers find their way into his hair, threading softly.

“Thank you.”

Yoongi’s voice sounds hoarse, from talking or crying, Kihyun doesn’t know. He doesn’t know how long it’s been, either, how much time passed between Jimin’s arrival and his departure, nor how long Yoongi stayed standing alone in that bathroom, mulling over what had happened. _Give it away, give it away._ And Kihyun will, he’ll give everything; the break of day might still be far but he will not go gentle into the night.  

“Let’s move out”, Kihyun says, and there’s an intake of breath, a weight upon his chest, a kiss on his temple. He feels Yoongi nod against his shoulder.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem is "Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines" by Dylan Thomas, there's also a reference to "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" by the same author.
> 
> The song Kihyun is listening to at the end is "Turn Out The Light" by The Music.
> 
> Thank you for reading! You can still direct all complains to @BlanquetteAO3 on twitter.


	7. A New Begining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kihyun and Yoongi move out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got hired full time so writing had to take a step back, but now that I'm sorta finding my rhythm, here I am! I guess we are slowly inching towards the end. But then I always say that and ten chapters later it's still going strong so who knows. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading.

**1.**

Only the books are left.

Kihyun is sitting cross-legged on the floor of Yoongi’s tiny apartment; on the floor of what had been his home, too, for a while. He wonders what he will take of this place, once he goes through the door for the last time. Which pieces of him will remain here, trapped between bare walls that witnessed too much. Yoongi’s little sanctuary is empty. Kihyun thinks it should remain that way, a closed grave for Yoongi’s pain. But maybe it would be good, too, to have someone new live here, painting over Yoongi’s memories of hurt with happier ones. An exorcism, Kihyun decides. If there’s no place for the pain to remain, it must cease to exist.

There’s a sigh somewhere to his right, where Yoongi is considering the piles of books they put up against the wall. He sighs again, shaking his head. His hair is getting too long, softly falling over his eyes with each movement. Kihyun loves it, so he doesn’t say anything. When he pushes them back with warm hands, uncovering Yoongi’s eyes, it feels like falling.

“To think I didn’t even read half of them.”

“We can give them away, if you don’t want to pack them.”

“I don’t want to give them away. I don’t want to pack them either, though.”

Kihyun laughs, looking at Yoongi standing in the middle of his empty living-room. The couch Kihyun fell asleep on when he first came is gone, so is the coffee table and the ratty armchair Yoongi would sometimes perch himself in to try and diminish his pile of unread books.

“Why did you even get so many?”

“I don’t know. I used to wanna be a writer. Thought I could learn a thing or two.”

“You never told me that. That’s neat.”

Yoongi laughs, but it’s dry and humorless, and he’s shaking his head in a way that Kihyun hates.

“It was bullshit. I thought I was like, edgy, you know, that I had things to say. I thought with what I was going through art was gonna come to me or some bullshit like that. I thought I was gonna be like those accursed poets and whatnot. But suffering doesn’t make you creative. That’s just a load of crap. How creative can you be when you can’t even drag yourself out of bed?”

“So you gave up?”

“There wasn’t really anything to give up. It was just a stupid thing.”

The way Yoongi face is angled, though. The tone of his voice. It spells regret, something lost and never found, something that constrict Kihyun’s chest; something that makes him wish things could be different.

“You can get out of bed, now, though.”

Yoongi isn’t looking at him, eyes lost, staring at the book in his hands without seeing it.

“I guess.”

“I’m saying–”

“I know what you’re saying.”

Yoongi puts the book at the bottom of a cardboard box, neatly tucking it in the corner with more care than necessary, smoothing over the bent corners with a hand splayed on the cover.

“I have no story to tell.”

“What about yours?”

An exorcism of paper and ink, and maybe Yoongi could finally be free, hands warming as his ghosts leave him.

“What?”

He’s looking now, staring at Kihyun’s face who shrugs, gathering books in his own box as if this discussion didn’t warrant his whole attention.

“Talk about your life.”

“It’s not interesting.”

“The things you write about don’t have to be inherently interesting. You can just make it so. You know, like when Namjoon rants about his bicycle. I don’t care, but he makes it funny, so I can’t help but listen.”

Yoongi’s eyebrows shoot up, hiding behind his fringe as his hands still on the next book.

“Namjoon rants to you about his bike?”

“Gushes, more like. You’re missing the point, though.”

“When does Namjoon ever talks to you?”

“He has my number. He’s bored, he just calls sometimes. Look, forget about Namjoon for a damn minute.”

“Why is there so much things I don’t know about? Are you guys pals now?”

“He’s funny.”

“He talks to you about bicycles.”

“In a funny way. You see what I’m getting at?”

“Bicycles are hilarious?”

“Are you thick on purpose?”

The corner of Yoongi’s mouth lifts in a half-smile and Kihyun groans, chucking a small paperback at him. Yoongi defends with a yelp, outright laughing now as Kihyun tiredly shakes his head.

“I was being serious.”

“I know. That’s what makes it funny. I’m so not gonna be a comedy writer, though.”

“Nah, you’re way too dramatic for that. I see you more as some sort of Korean Murakami.”

“Ryu or Haruki?”

“A bit of both, now that you mention it. Ryu’s grittiness with Haruki’s imagery.”

“I’m gonna be so fucking edgy.”

“You bet.”

It hits Kihyun, then, that it’s the first time he’s hearing Yoongi talk about his future, even in jest. His hands still, and something must show in his face as Yoongi spares him a curious look.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. Just. I think it’s the first time I hear you talk like that. About, you know. What you could do in the future.”

Yoongi seems to think it over, movements slowing as he takes one book after the other and carefully piles them in the cardboard box.

“Mh. I guess. I didn’t see much of a future for myself, back then. I thought I’d probably be dead by now. So, like. I didn’t make many plans. Or any at all.”

Kihyun nods. His gestures have taken on a mechanical quality, slow hands lifting books from the piles in a constant rhythm. His mind doesn’t partake, entirely focused on Yoongi sitting opposite him, doing the exact same thing. The other is slow and measured, too, talking towards the books rather than Kihyun. It’s easier, this way, the repetition of their actions somehow appeasing. The smell, too, of dusty old books, closing off a sheltered space in the empty apartment. Kihyun’s voice sounds faraway when he speaks.

“I used to make plans all the time. I thought, when I get out of here, I’ll do this and that. It helped me not give up, I guess. But then it was just a kid’s fantasies. I never even remotely tried to get out or get help, not until I met you, and by then I had stopped making plans altogether.”

“Why?”

“Like you, I guess. I thought my folks would end up killing me before I could do anything. So, why even try?”

Kihyun feels Yoongi looking at him, but he cannot lift his eyes from the books in the box. The letters blur under his stare, mixing with bright splashes of colors from the covers; there’s tears pooling in his eyes when he doesn’t blink for too long.

Cold hands on his cheeks, lifting his head; a fleeting press of lips and Yoongi crouching in front of him, dark eyes and gentle smile. There’s tightness in Kihyun’s chest, his chest way too narrow for his feelings to properly expand. If he looks for too long he’s going to burst, he knows, so he closes his eyes and kisses Yoongi again. Oblivion had been desirable for a while, to both of them, but nothing shines in the dark and cold is only nice when trapped in Yoongi’s fingers. Kihyun’s hand on Yoongi’s arm might clutch a bit too hard, fingers pressing in soft flesh, but it’s fine, it’s real, and Kihyun has never been this glad of not letting go when he could have.

 

**2.**

When the living room is finally empty, books tucked in closed boxes, they retread to the bedroom, laying on the cold floor side by side. The room has a strange echo now, and it seems bigger, almost unfamiliar. They hold hands while staring at the ceiling, trading soft breaths and simple words as if to fill in the void. It feels strange, like standing on the verge of a precipice, and Kihyun hopes the fall won’t hurt.

The decision to move out had been made when Yoongi’s cheekbone was still an angry red, Kihyun’s knuckles swollen and throbbing. It had been made without thinking, and for days Kihyun had waited for Yoongi to back out, just as they were watching over apartments listings, hoping for the one place that could hold them. But Yoongi hadn’t. And so here they are, in an empty apartment, waiting for Jimin to come take away the last of their belongings in his beat-up car. It’s a goodbye Kihyun can barely feel, having only lived here for a few months. It’s different for Yoongi, though, and the hand in his is holding on too tight, the body next to his is too tense. So Kihyun moves, pulling slowly until Yoongi fits against him as he should, head buried in the crook of his neck.

“Is it still alright?”

Yoongi’s breath is barely felt against Kihyun’s skin, his body almost weightless, and Kihyun is hit with the image of Yoongi disappearing as they cross the front door for the last time. A ghost, bound to the same place for eternity.

“It is. I’m actually excited. Even if it’s, well, a little scary. Big change, you know.”

“Yeah. I think that’s what’s needed, though.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

“I’m right all the time.”

“Don’t push it.”

Yoongi is giggling and the strange feeling dissipates with the sound. His laugh is short-lived, though, and the air stills around them as Yoongi shifts, laying his head on Kihyun’s shoulder.

“I’m trying to feel some kind of farewell but it’s almost like this place is pushing me out. So long sucker, wasn’t fun for me either.”

“Maybe it is. You left too much crap memories. Bad mojo and all.”

Yoongi snickers again, and a small smile floats to Kihyun’s lips.

“I hope after you it gets a young student full of ambitions or something. Enough with crazy fuckers.”

A flick on his cheekbone, and Yoongi rises from his shoulder, resting his chin on his palm. He looks young like this, and Kihyun is reminded that they are; too young, maybe, to have lived such a life.

“You know, I thought of something, earlier. I think it’s in the post-face of Miso Soup, I don’t know if you read it. Murakami. Ryu, not Haruki.”

Kihyun shakes his head and Yoongi nods just as he keeps on talking. It seems important, somehow, so Kihyun doesn’t interrupt, even as Yoongi’s eyes drop to something easier to look at than Kihyun’s face.

“He says that while writing it, he felt he was in the position of someone who has to process the garbage all by himself. I think I could do that. I don’t mean it in the same way he did, I don’t have the pretension to write about society and all that, not yet, not at my level, but… Even the marrow of my bones feels rotten sometimes. Maybe I could take the ugliness inside myself and make it into something better. Or equally as terrible, but a bit beautiful, too, you know. Maybe words could do that. Maybe I could try again. In, in our new place.”

Softly, Kihyun threads his fingers in Yoongi’s hair. The other nudges against his palm like a cat, closing his eyes.

“Yeah, I think that would be great.”

Yoongi nods, angling his head upwards and Kihyun understands. Yoongi always kisses languidly, slow gestures carving a space where everything else ceases to exist.

Everything else, except the loud knocking on their front door, and they break apart with a sigh, Yoongi’s getting up to his feet while Kihyun shakes the haze out of his mind. Left alone he looks over the room, bare white walls holding no traces of them, nothing tangible attesting of the years Yoongi spent here, warring with himself. He can’t get out fast enough.

 

**3.**

Jimin is surprisingly strong for someone so gentle. He makes quick work of the few boxes they have left while Yoongi hovers around him like a fly he should swat at. Kihyun retreats, like he always is when Jimin is thrown into the mix. There’s still something unresolved between Yoongi and Jimin, a quiet tension born as they realized the old pieces didn’t fit anymore. They should have known, they watched them fall away. But it is fine, it is alright, there’s good intentions and enough kindness to build something new, and the tentative words they share between themselves will grow stronger soon enough.

So Kihyun goes outside, sitting on the curb with the last of their boxes, waiting for them to come down. Only Jimin does, though, sitting down next to him with a small smile on his plump lips.

“I think he needs some time. To say goodbye, you know.”

Kihyun nods, eyes stuck to the road. It’s going to be dark soon, and they should leave quickly, but this kind of things take time, he knows. He pictures Yoongi, going from room to room, fingers trailing over the walls, and he wonders what it is that Yoongi sees in his mind, if it is only pain that these rooms hold for him. It’s decided, then. He will turn the new apartment into another kind of sanctuary. One for them to rest, to grow, to leave the past where it belongs. One where they can at least try to be happy.

 

**4.**

Kihyun hadn’t been far from the truth, when picturing Yoongi. Nothing is left, except him, standing alone in the exact middle of his living room. If he leaves, he can never go back, and the door at the other end looks as inviting as it daunts him. An adventure, and he had never been one for them. So he takes a few steps, until he can reach the wall with an extended arm. It’s cold, colder than he himself is, and a shiver goes through him as he walks, fingers drawing invisible waves over the wall. He tries to find memories to conjure, his own private farewell, but he finds that nothing comes up. He spent too long in a blur here, time passing him by as he numbed his consciousness. Yoongi feels like a ghost lost in time, wandering and forever lost, but there’s the door at the other end, and maybe it is calling him back to life.

 


	8. Afternoons in the empty room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They move in, and it brings something out of Kihyun. Namjoon is helpful, as he always is. Yoongi tries to feel fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is maybe more descriptive than usual? I don't know. I wasn't shy with the dialogues either :')))  
> Also anticipate lots of sitting on the floor doing nothing.

**1.**

They have an extra room in their new home.

Kihyun stays by the entrance and lets Yoongi flit around the apartment, in and out of rooms full of boxes they have yet to unpack. Only one is left empty, the one they don’t know what to do with. They don’t really need the extra space. Kihyun could make it his own; after all, they resorted to sharing a bed out of necessity, at first, but then it didn’t even occur to them that they could now afford to split. So the room stayed bare, and as Yoongi stands in its doorway, eyes riveted to the white walls and tired floors, its quiet emptiness seems to seep into his mind, soothing the racing thoughts found there; as the dust settles he finds that a certain weight is missing, a burden he forgot to pack amongst kitchen utensils and dusty books.

There’s quiet steps behind him, warm fingers lacing with his and he turns slightly, towards a mop of dark hair and darker eyes still.

“You okay?”

Yoongi gives the question more thought than it probably warrants, but Kihyun waits, and Yoongi squeezes his hand when he answers, a slow smile on his lips.

“Yeah, I am. Moving was a great idea.”

The smile Kihyun gives him is tinted with relief and Yoongi kisses it away, there in the empty room.

 

**2.**

“We could turn it into a library. A reading room, you know, like fancy people.”

The view out the window shows only greenery. That’s what they liked, at first, when visiting. The apartment building stood only three stories tall, an old, square thing on the outskirts of Seoul. It didn’t matter, to them, that it was far away – there’s corner stores to waste the night in everywhere, after all. The land behind should have been constructed, too, but the project was abandoned when the area ceased to be attractive in comparison to the high-rise apartment buildings surging in the middle of the city. Thus the little square behind their building had become fallow land, overtaken by tall grass and wild flowers, thorny bushes never to be cut down. It appealed to them, somehow, this wild expanse of nature surviving despite the odds. And so, they chose this place to become theirs.

“That does sound fancy.”

Yoongi is lying on his back in the middle of the empty room, legs entangled with Kihyun’s own, who’s sitting opposing him, leaning back on his hands.

“We should get you a desk, too.”

“A desk?”

Yoongi forces his head up to look at Kihyun for a couple of seconds before the strain in his neck is too much and he rests back down on the hard floor.

“What would I do with a desk? The kitchen table is enough.”

There’s a silence, before Kihyun shifts to a more comfortable position, cross-legged and slouching. It feels cold, where his legs used to be touching Yoongi’s own.   

“You know, for writing.”

“Oh, right. My career as a writer. I forgot about that.”

“No, you didn’t. I saw you looking up new laptops.”

“It’s just. Mine freezes all the time.”

“Yeah, right, and whatever for do you suddenly need it to work?”

Yoongi sighs, an amused smile on his lips.

“Okay, alright, maybe you got me. Maybe I’ve been thinking about it.”

“Good, then you need a desk. And like, notebooks. My brother had tons.”

Eyes fixed on the ceiling, Yoongi replays Kihyun’s last words in his mind, and something drops between his ribs.

“Excuse me, your what?”

“My brother. I have a brother. You’d think they would have stopped at one, right? I really don’t know why people insist on having children if they’re not gonna love them.”

Yoongi sits up, looking at Kihyun who’s staring at his hands resting in his lap. He looks small, suddenly, and Yoongi is reminded how little he actually knows about the guy. It’s striking, really, that at this point in their relationship there’s still such things to be discovered. It’s striking, and a little sad, too, maybe. Kihyun rarely talks about himself and Yoongi wonders if it’s trust, that’s lacking between them.

“I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t tell you.”

“Where is he, now?”

Kihyun shrugs, and it’s his turn to lay down, hands crossed on his belly. He’s tense, Yoongi can tell, and his voice sounds faraway when he talks. It takes Yoongi too much time to decipher the emotion behind it. Guilt, deep and devouring.

“Still at home, I guess. Well, not home. This is home. With my folks, I meant.”

Yoongi swallows and his throat is too dry, flaying his words on the way out.

“You don’t know?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“And he didn’t tell you?”

“I left him. I left him there. I didn’t even tell him where I was going because I didn’t want to be found.”

“But–”

“I don’t think you understand. He trusted me, and I trusted him, and we were allied, you know. Against everything else going on. And then I betrayed him. You don’t come back from that. I can’t just call or shoot him a text.”

There’s no arguing with the finality of Kihyun’s words, cold and cutting in the silence of the hollow room. Yoongi’s eyes drop to the decrepit wooden floor, and the only thought coming to him is that they should polish it, because Kihyun likes to walk barefoot, and he will get splinters. It might be too late, though, too late for that; Kihyun is already full of needles, buried deep beneath his skin.

“I’m sorry.”

“What for? You weren’t the one regularly beating our asses.”

“I just–”

“Look, it’s fine, I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“I do, though.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath as Kihyun sits up and he looks ready to fight, so Yoongi steels himself, hardens his stare and squares his jaw, because he won’t back down this time; as ready as he is, though, there is no fight to be had. Kihyun abruptly covers his face with his hands, letting out a strangled sort of sound, shoulders tensing as if holding back the waters of a burst dam. And so Yoongi scoots closer, as close as he dares knowing Kihyun might not want to be touched, and he waits.

“Truth is, I’ve…”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve, you know, I’ve been so fucking worried.”

There’s an unspoken permission in the slight shift of Kihyun’s stance, and so Yoongi brings him towards himself, fitting the other’s body against his own smaller frame. Kihyun stays silent and Yoongi feels as if his own heartbeat is filling the whole room. Maybe it is, strong and steady, maybe that’s what Kihyun’s listening to, pressed against his ribcage. His voice soon follows, muffled by the fabric of Yoongi’s sweater.

“I drafted tons of messages. I didn’t send any. I don’t know what to say. I left him.”

“You said it yourself, you can’t save everyone.”

“I know, I know, but, he’s my brother. I thought I was fine, but I’m not. I’m really not, Yoongi.”

Yoongi closes his arms around Kihyun as he seems to melt against him. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, if he did; Yoongi could carry him where it’s safe until there wouldn’t be any more splinters to step on.

“Kihyun?”

Hearing his name Kihyun just nods without raising his head from Yoongi’s chest. The dark, the warmth and the familiar smell; it creates a refuge he’s not yet ready to leave.

“Do you want to find your brother? I’ll help you.”

A silence, and Kihyun finally shifts, disentangling himself from Yoongi. They’re both cross-legged, Kihyun keeping a hand fisted in the dark fabric of Yoongi’s too-big sweater as he shakes his hair out of his eyes. He stares, for a long time, and maybe he finds what he’s looking for in Yoongi’s eyes – some form of candor, maybe, an earnestness he needs in order to trust.

“I won’t… I won’t be able to do it alone.”

“You won’t have to. I know I’m not… The most reliable person alive. But I will be, this time.”

This stare again, searching, and Kihyun’s lips parting on a tired smile, self-conscious, too, of the flaw he showed, the vulnerability in his carefully crafted self.

“Yeah, okay, alright. I’ll… Let’s find him.”

Yoongi nods, once, and Kihyun closes his eyes, leaning forward until he’s again resting, boneless, against Yoongi’s chest. They stay like this, silent and unmoving, until the light starts to paint red and yellow on the wild greenery outside their window.

 

**3.**

It takes Namjoon and Yoongi the better part of the afternoon to lug the desk all the way to the new apartment. It’s a small thing, in need of a new coat of paint, that Namjoon found online on the same website he brought his infamous bicycle. They have to pick it up themselves, though. Thankfully, in the middle of the week at three in the afternoon, there’s not much commuters bumping into them; they find an almost empty carriage where they can sit side by side, watching the landscape pass them by through the windows.

They remain mostly silent, cracking a joke here and there when something amusing comes to mind, inconsequential chatter with no other purpose than passing the time. As the days are getting colder they sink in layers of clothes, puffed up coats and knitted scarves hiding half their faces. The beanie Namjoon wears almost falls over his eyes and he looks like a hoodlum, slouching as he is on his seat. Yoongi likes it, likes his tall, gangly frame, likes to lean against him and close his eyes, letting the shaking of the train lull him half to sleep.

There’s something soothing in Namjoon’s quiet companionship and Yoongi knows he abused it, knows he turned his friend into something much more crucial, even if it wasn’t done without his consent. Namjoon shouldn’t have become one of the sole repositories of his sanity, during his darker years. There’s a strange form of guilt blooming in his stomach at the realization that it couldn’t have been easy for Namjoon, either, and that he still did it.

Yoongi shifts on the hard bench, suddenly uncomfortable. He opens his eyes, head still resting against Namjoon’s shoulder, and when he talks he’s staring at the little desk they angled as best as they could so as not to block the path.

“Hey, Namjoon?”

“Mh?”

“Did I ever thank you?”

“For what? The desk?”

“No, I mean. For everything else. All that you did, you know.”

There’s a quiet beat that Yoongi recognizes for Namjoon’s reorganizing his thoughts, and it’s still a while before the other answers, shoes scuffing on the moving ground. Yoongi waits him out, bleary eyes fleeting to the scenery flitting by the windows.

“You don’t need to thank me. That’s just what friends do.”

“It’s not, though. I think this went like, way beyond. I owe you a lot. Maybe everything.”

 “Look, I didn’t mind, alright? I did it because I wanted to. And I needed to, as well.”

Yoongi looks up at that, at the side of Namjoon’s face. He slouched even more, face almost entirely buried in his dark scarf, eyes staring at the long legs he extended in front of himself, tired combat boots crossed at the ankles.

“What do you mean?”

“When people like you enough they want to make sure you’re okay. There’s this thing called worry, you know, it makes you do things for people you love.”

“So, you love me.”

“No, I hate you, that’s why I’m helping you drag a busted desk to the other side of the land.”

Yoongi snorts, an ugly sort of sound that somehow deflates the too-solemn atmosphere falling over them. Namjoon knocks shoulders in answer, straightening up, and Yoongi just goes boneless against him, weighting as much as he can against his side, face half smooshed against Namjoon’s sleeve.

“Look, I just want you to know I appreciate it. A lot.”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine, stop being so goddamn sappy.”

“M’not.”

“Sure. Drool on my coat and I’ll straight-up murder you, though.”

Yoongi laughs again, easing himself off from Namjoon’s side to lean back against his seat. They’re alone in the carriage, alone except a middle-aged woman half asleep opposite them, and Yoongi looks at her, at the bag resting on her knees, and he’s reminded of the countless stories he spun in the dark hours of the night, about strangers he never saw again, for another stranger who became so much more. He sighs, and Namjoon looks at him with a question in his face.

“A lot has changed, in so little time.”

“Yeah. You’re just finally ready to let things happen.”

“Maybe.”

“Do I have your bedmate to thank?”

“Stop calling him that. I know you guys are friends. He told me you rant to him about your bicycle.”

“It’s just. No one else cares.”

“He doesn’t, either. He just thinks you’re funny.”

“Close enough, I’ll take it.”

Yoongi snorts, looks up when the train stops just in time to realize they need to get off, and it’s an awkward affair to get the desk off before the door closes on them. The effort makes him sweat and they almost drop everything when Namjoon trips on the stairs, but they make it out, screaming and laughing like teenagers. As Yoongi watches their breaths evaporates in the cold air, it occurs to him that he hasn’t felt this light in months.

 

**4.**

“Remind me why we’re doing this again?”

Namjoon is pushing against the desk while Yoongi tries to get it up the stairs from his side, and it’s slow going, unsynchronized as they are.

“It’s for my career as a bestselling author.”

“Oh, right. You’re gonna make millions. Writing about what, again?”

Yoongi isn’t looking at Namjoon when he answers, preferring to focus on the tricky matter of negotiating the turn in the staircase.

“Us.”

“Us who?”

Namjoon really isn’t helping, as tall as he is he never learned coordination, tripping over himself every chance he gets.

“You know, me, Kihyun.”

“Isn’t it gonna be bleak as fuck?”

“Well, thanks.”

Namjoon has a self-conscious laugh before cursing as he hits his elbow against the railing.

“Let me guess, I’ll be the comic relief?”

“Do you wanna take a break?”

“No, let’s just get this over with.”

They do, the desk finally finding its place in the corner near the window of the empty room. Namjoon sprawls on the floor as soon as they’re done, amidst the unpacked boxes of books Kihyun dragged in before disappearing to work. Yoongi sits down next to him, knees up against his chest, and watches as Namjoon extends his arms like a starfish, closing his eyes.

“I’m dead. I died, this is my ghost talking. You still need to eat your vegetables even if I’m not around, though. Are you guys eating your vegetables?”

Yoongi smiles, pokes Namjoon in the ribs with his toes, earning himself an undignified shriek.

“Yeah, we’re trying. You can check the fridge.”

Namjoon nods, seemingly satisfied. His eyes remain closed as his brow furrows, though, and Yoongi waits patiently for the other’s thoughts to fully form before he expresses them.

“Are you really going to write about yourself?”

“I don’t know. I think so, yeah. Kihyun seems to think it’s important.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“You know how sometimes it’s so much easier to express some things through writing? Like the words were always there, just waiting to be let out, and when you do they take over you with a life of their own.”

Yoongi just nods, even though Namjoon cannot see him. It’s not a question asking for an answer, Namjoon unwinding the thread of his thoughts as they come.

“I think maybe that’s it. Maybe writing will help you make sense of it all, and if it’s good enough, maybe it will be worth reading for others, too.”

A nod, again, and Yoongi shifts, lying down next to Namjoon, his head pillowed on the other’s arm.

“Yeah, maybe. I don’t know. I guess I’m just gonna write for myself, first. I forgot what it feels like.”

“Do you still have what you wrote back then?”

Yoongi shakes his head; those notebooks are long gone, hasty notes scrawled on torn paper, half-hashed poetry born of a hazy brain, empty of a meaning he didn’t know then how to bring out of himself.

“Too bad. Some of it was actually pretty decent.”

“It was all crap, Namjoon. I just tried to imitate better people, it was meaningless.”

“You’ve always been your own harshest critic.”

“Back then you just wanted to spare my feelings, if you actually remembered what I wrote you’d know.”

“Alright, maybe. I still think you had some style, you know.”

It’s strange, to think of this time, the time before his dark spell, as he calls it in his mind, a dark spell that lasted for years. He doesn’t know this person anymore, seemingly too removed from his present self; even the memories feel artificial, as if etched on film rather than reality. He wonders what it will be like, to write again, to look inside himself, something he tried to avoid as much as he could. He doesn’t know what he will find there, and maybe he’d rather not know. But Namjoon is right, maybe he is ready to let things happen, to relinquish some control, to let the words take over.

Yoongi realizes he stayed quiet for too long when the faraway sound in his ears resolve itself into Namjoon’s voice, humming a slow song to himself. Yoongi doesn’t remember the melody, but he knows the words, they sound like something Namjoon told him countless times.

_All lines are broken, and we need you to hold on_

_your eyes have open, but you’ve got to go on._

_I’ll comfort you_

_I’ll stay with you_

_It’s a promise, not forgotten._

Yoongi shifts, bringing himself closer. Namjoon stops singing, a quiet sigh escaping his lips, and it seems that he’s close to falling asleep, simply lying there on Yoongi’s floor. There’s a simple comfort in his presence, unwavering after all these years, and Yoongi shares in his warmth, in the solidity, the realness of his body, his words, his voice. Something to grab onto, that will never let go.

“Namjoon?”

“Mh?”

“I’ll write about you, too.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Namjoon's singing is 'Promise' by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.


	9. The dreamer at night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a strange visitor in Yoongi's little corner shop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I was sick while writing this chapter so it's sort of self-indulging, gear up for some fluff and blame it on the cold medicine. 
> 
> Introducing a new character too! Hope you'll like him because I do.

**1.**

“You’re new here.”

Yoongi looks up from the notebook he has been staring at for the better part of an hour. There’s a guy standing on the other side of the counter, a bored look on his small face. He looks washed-out under the fluorescent lights of the convenience store, too tall and too lanky as he disappears into layers of clothes. There’s a lollipop bulging his cheek, and it changes side while the guy waits for an answer.

“Yeah, I am. That’s a problem?”

The guy stays silent, seemingly thinking it over. His lollipop changes side again and he finally shrugs, his drowsy voice curling around each syllable.

“No, that’s fine.”

“Great. What can I help you with?”

The guy points at his face, and when Yoongi doesn’t seem to understand, he takes the candy out of his mouth and aims the wet thing in his direction.

“I took this. I was just going to leave, but then I didn’t.”

“Great.”

Yoongi grabs a lollipop from the display on the counter and rings it up.

“That will be 200 won.”

The guy doesn’t pay, instead leaning over the counter, blatantly staring at Yoongi’s notebook while the cashier takes a step back.

“What are you writing?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re studying?”

“That’s none of your business.”

The guy pouts, but doesn’t move, looking up at Yoongi with tired eyes.

“You’re not very fun.”

“No one’s fun at 3 a.m.”

Again, the guy seems to think over Yoongi’s words for much longer than they warrants. The conclusion he reaches makes him sighs as he straightens back up to his full height.

“Okay, all right, that’s fair. But I don’t want to pay for the lollipop anymore.”

Yoongi feels a headache coming on. His previous shop had the merit of standing near a university, attracting all kind of people in the middle of the night. Attracting Kihyun. Here, though, lost on the city’s edges, there is no one to entertain him. No one, except this strange man that he doesn’t have the energy to deal with.

“Great. Go on, then.”

“You don’t care?”

“Not one bit.”

A pout again, and the guy puts the candy back in his mouth, crushing it loudly under his teeth. Yoongi winces.

“So none of my actions have any consequences.”

“What?”

This is a strange conclusion to reach, and Yoongi’s stare darts around the store when worry starts eating at him, unwarranted. The guy is upsetting, all slow gestures and subdued voice. There’s some kind of barely felt tension, too, in his demeanor. He’s looking for something, but Yoongi isn’t sure what to give him.

“What if I took something bigger? Did something worse.”

“Something worse?”

The guy shrugs, swaying a little on his feet, looking around the store as if all his answers stood in the snack aisle.

“I don’t know. Like a hold-up?”

“Is this a hold-up?”

“No. I wouldn’t know how to go about it. I’m not scary.”

“You kinda are.”

“Really?”

This seems to delight the guy for some unfathomable reason, and he smiles, eyes disappearing into crescents. He looks younger like this, shedding away some of his eerie indolence. Yoongi relaxes somewhat, but his bewilderment must show on his face as the guy suddenly sobers up, opening his eyes wide in what might be an effort to look alert.

“I’m sorry. I haven’t slept in so long. Everything feels like a dream, I don’t really know what’s real anymore.”

“So you’re stealing candies?”

“If I can get away with everything, it is definitely a dream. But you don’t care about anything, so this whole plan isn’t really helping.”

“You can’t read, in dreams.”

“What?”

“You can’t read.”

The guy’s swaying again, and Yoongi is tempted to reach out and steady him. But he keeps his hands firmly by his side, which doesn’t give him enough time to snatch his notebook back when the guy suddenly grabs it.

“ _I want to be a rock in my next life._ That’s a nice start. Where’s the rest?”

“There isn’t any rest for now. Give it back.”

“What’s it gonna be about?”

“Nothing you need to concern yourself with.”

There’s a flash of hurt on the guy’s face, but he still isn’t giving the notebook back so Yoongi swallows the apology on his lips and keeps staring at him in what he hopes is an intimidating enough manner. It isn’t, though, or the guy just isn’t paying any attention to him as he soldiers on.

“I wouldn’t want to be a rock. They can’t feel anything.”

“That’s kind of the whole point.”

“Some things are worth feeling, though. Like, love.”

The guy actually says that with a straight face and Yoongi just stares back, not really knowing what he’s supposed to answer to this kind of candor.

“And, you know, that feeling when you get back home after a while. You should write about that. When you open the door, and, you know, the smell.”

“The smell?”

“Yeah.”

The guy just blinks without offering any further explanation, eyes falling back to the ten words Yoongi put on paper.

“Yeah, you shouldn’t write about rocks. Or maybe. But then home too, and the people there.”

“What about when home isn’t really home?”

“Then it’s not, and you have to make another one. You can write about that, too.”

There’s something wistful about the guy, suddenly, dipping his features in shadows. He puts the notebook back on the counter, smoothing the open page with a large hand. Yoongi feels compelled to ask.

“Where are you from, then? Where’s your home?”

“Gwangju. It’s far, and it’s beautiful, and I miss it. Seoul is too big, and I’m getting lost.”

Yoongi nods, and maybe he finally understands. He was uprooted, too, after all. But the home he left behind never really felt as much, and the people there he isn’t missing. Attachments that should have been made but weren’t, a place that was never found, and so he left in search of something better that didn’t come along. He had liked Seoul, at first. It was easy, there. Easy to fade out, to become another anonymous face amongst countless other. Easy to get lost. Easy to disappear completely.

“I will go back, when I can. I don’t want to become a rock. Thank you, for the candy. And the advice.”

The guy is turning away, and Yoongi comes out of his own thoughts just as he’s about to step outside.

“What advice?”

“If I can read, I’m not dreaming.”

His tall frame is swallowed by the night before Yoongi can say anything else, and once he’s gone, Yoongi wonders if he didn’t just dream him all up, too. But his notebook is out of place on the counter, and the cash register still reads 200 won for one lone lollipop. He stares blankly, slow minutes passing by where the night gets darker until it seems like he’s the only light left in the world. He takes up his pen, then, brings his notebook closer, and starts writing. About people drifting in too-bright convenience stores in the middle of the night, about homes that aren’t home, about people who should love their children but do not.

 

**2.**

Yoongi gets home with the sun. When he opens the door he stands still on the threshold for a few minutes, seemingly looking for something. A smell, maybe, a feeling. There isn’t any. There isn’t any yet, he tells himself. Homes are made, not given.

The apartment is silent as he takes off his shoes, undressing on the way to the bedroom without caring where his clothes end up. He’s tired, extremely so. The wistful feeling the strange customer left him with won’t subside, and he wants to close his eyes on the world for a little while. The bedroom is dark when he steps in, black-out curtains drawn shut, and he can barely make out the shape burrowing under the heavy duvet. He crawls in, feeling for Kihyun’s body. Kihyun stirs, hands fumbling until he finds what he’s looking for, warm skin to touch, a soft heartbeat to listen to.

“Welcome back.”

Kihyun’s voice sounds drowsy, words barely articulated as he speaks against Yoongi’s skin, his breath ghosting over his collarbones. He’s warm, almost excessively so, and the cold still treading on Yoongi’s skin escapes him with a shudder.

“You’re warm.”

Kihyun hums as Yoongi nuzzles his hair, bringing himself impossibly closer.

“How was work?”

There’s a silent beat, in which Yoongi brings Kihyun’s face to his, kissing his closed lips, his nose, the side of his face. A small smile curves Kihyun’s mouth as he stays boneless against Yoongi, entirely open, and Yoongi realizes this is the kind of vulnerability Kihyun rarely shows, only in this half-state of wakefulness in the early morning, where sleep brought down walls he didn’t yet have the time to raise back up. It spurs on a strange kind of melancholy blooming below his heart, a sadness tinted with deep affection, and Yoongi hugs him tighter, as if he could hide him behind his ribs, where he would be safe from harm, forever.

“It was alright. A bit strange.”

“Strange?”

“Just. People are weird.”

“Only figuring that out now?”

Yoongi laughs, small and short lived as his customer’s strange expression drifts up in his mind.

“Is there anyone who isn’t fucked up in some way?”

Kihyun shifts, draping a leg over Yoongi’s thighs, stirring slightly until he’s satisfyingly comfortable, head pillowed on Yoongi’s chest.

“This is too deep so early in the morning. I’m not even awake yet.”

“You’re talking.”

“And yet.”

A smile, and Yoongi pats the head resting over his heart, threading careful fingers in Kihyun’s black strands.

“Alright, alright, go back to sleep.”

A hum, and soon enough Kihyun’s breathing evens out, his body a dead weight on Yoongi’s own. Yoongi’s tired, extremely so, but sleep won’t come to him. So he lays awake, trying to find shapes on the darkened ceiling, listening to Kihyun’s breathing, drowning in his warmth. This should be enough, he thinks. A home, and someone to keep warm.

 

**3.**

The tall customer comes back two nights later. One a.m. and Yoongi half asleep on the counter, roused by a slow voice he didn’t think he’d hear again. The guy is disappearing into an overcoat of a dark blue color that Yoongi finds beautiful, and so he stares until the customer speaks again.

“I came to see if I am dreaming.”

There is no candy in his mouth this time, replaced by an expectant smile on his full lips. Yoongi sighs, wavering half a second before pushing his notebook towards the other. There’s more pages darkened with ink now, words no one has seen but himself, and it’s an odd thing to let this stranger read them. They were written for himself, first and foremost, and there is no way to know how the stranger will understand them, how he will make them his own.

The guy reads slowly, going back and forth between pages as if looking for something, hunched over the counter in complete silence. Yoongi finds himself fidgeting, stealing glances at the expressionless face of the stranger, expectation tinted with fear making a home in his belly. There’s so much to judge, here, so much to misunderstand; small, scattered parts of himself he has yet to gather to make a whole. He almost jumps when the guy finally raises his head, dark eyes boring into Yoongi’s own.

“Why is it so sad?”

“I don’t know.”

The guy looks back down at the pages, again smoothing them over with his large hand, almost lovingly, as if they were something precious. Maybe they are, Yoongi thinks, words he carved out of himself in the shelter of the night, words that festered for too long inside the hallways of his mind.

“I like it. It feels like life is, for people like us.”

“People like us?”

A rare grin, a glimpse of something that used to be, fleeting.

“You know.”

“I’m not sure I do.”

The stranger pursues his lips in thoughts, accompanying his words with a vague gesture of his hand.

“People who don’t sleep at night?”

And it’s good enough, Yoongi thinks. Words weight differently after dark, when all is soft and subdued, and maybe their true meaning can be revealed, in the shadows and the silence. Maybe he can write for the people who live there, in this suspended state of half wakefulness, not knowing if they are dreaming.

“How is it going to end?”

“I don’t know, yet.”

The guy nods, thoughtful, and absentmindedly starts to turn the pages of the notebook. It’s a while before he speaks again, and his voice is faint; Yoongi strains to hear.

“I want it to end well.”

“I think it will.”

“Yeah?”

The guy looks up, eyes alight with something hopeful. Yoongi can only offer a dim smile.

“Yeah.”

“I’m glad. There’s enough failures out there.”

The stranger closes the notebook then, pushes it back towards Yoongi who leaves it there on the counter between them. There’s a beat of silence where each seems lost in thoughts, until the guy shakes himself and speaks first.

“I should go. I’ll come again.”

Yoongi nods, and again, it’s when the guy is about to step outside that he finds his voice.

“Hey, what’s your name?”

A small hesitation, and –

“Hyungwon.”

“I’m Yoongi. Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, nice to meet you, too.”

The smile Hyungwon gives him before the night swallows him is genuine, tinted with something warm Yoongi isn’t sure how to decipher. He’s gone quickly, and as Yoongi is yet again left alone under the cold, fluorescent lights, he takes up his pen again.

 

**4.**

Kihyun is awake, this time. He’s still in bed, though, rumpled up by sleep, and when he spots Yoongi standing on the threshold of the bedroom he opens his arms in invitation. Yoongi complies, something warm below his heart, and it’s his turn to pillow his head on the other’s chest, eyes closed.

“I think I made some sort of friend.”

Kihyun shifts, bringing his hand to rest in Yoongi’s hair.

“Yeah? Who?”

“Some guy who just comes to hang out around the store.”

“Sounds familiar.”

“Right.”

“Are you replacing me?”

“I could never.”

Kihyun laughs, stroking Yoongi’s hair like one would pet a cat. But Yoongi remains quiet as something barely known settles in his mind. It’s true, he thinks, he could never. Through these days of being lost, something had grown within him, a deep affection he didn’t know himself still capable of, an almost melancholic yearning for everything Kihyun was, even when there was still so much to be known. It hurts, in a way, and there’s words stuck in his throat he doesn’t know how to let out.

So he lifts his head instead, staring at Kihyun who looks down at him, both hands lost in Yoongi’s hair.

“What is it? Do I have dried drool on my face again.”

Yoongi smiles, shaking his head, but the feeling growing beneath his skin still irks him, and if words won’t suffice maybe actions will. So he frames Kihyun’s face with his hands as he kisses him; and he puts something new in it, a small realization that has yet to take root, something that could grow as wild and free as the fallow grounds beyond their window. Maybe this is it, he thinks. Something worth feeling.

 

 


	10. Standing in the doorway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kihyun confronts old demons and Yoongi comes to a decision. Feelings are acknowledged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi hello it's me, I haven't given up on this fic and I hope you guys didn't either. I'm truly sorry for the long ass wait between the updates, when the writing slump strikes it strikes hard. Anyway I hope you'll enjoy this chapter. It's corny so beware.

**1.**

“Well, that’s grim.”

Yoongi looks up at the slow voice, only to find Hyungwon’s grinning face peering at the same page he had been staring at for the past hour. Black lines, crisscrossing over each other until they almost ripped the paper in half, an angry drawing of nothingness, of the dark pit he felt opening in his stomach that day, when he stood on the pavement and watched Kihyun crumble into dust.

“I guess.”

Hyungwon’s dopey smile doesn’t waver as he straightens to lean against the counter. He’s in his dark blue coat again, the one Yoongi likes. So Yoongi stares until his eyes go out of focus, and the blue that fills his vision is almost calming; just almost, though, and it’s still there, this gnawing feeling of helplessness pulsating in the empty space below his heart.

“Did something happen?”

“No. Maybe.”

Hyungwon hums, and Yoongi’s eyes are still lost at sea; he wants to sink, in a dark blue ocean where his body could dissolve into foam, light and easy. But he’s still too real, standing under fluorescent lights weighting heavy on his bent shoulders, and he thought they were almost there, but the hill hid a mountain.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Come on. Tell me a story. I came for one.”

Yoongi sighs, eyes falling to his page again, and the crisscrossing lines trap his gaze in their web.

“It’s not a nice story.”

“It’s fine, it can’t always be.”

Hyungwon sags against the counter, and Yoongi is tempted to reach out, touch something warm that would ground him. He doesn’t; his fingers remain cold, gripping his pen too tightly as his knuckles turn white.

“It’s just. I didn’t know what I expected.”

 

**2.**

The day is warm for the season and Kihyun opens his jacket as they take a turn. He’s fiddling with his zipper, something to busy worried hands with; Yoongi watches until Kihyun’s fingers are free to be trapped in his. Kihyun smiles, something awkward and unsure, something that speaks of the worry pulling threads around his heart. Yoongi only wrenches his eyes from him when Kihyun stops walking, pointing a hesitant finger at the end of the street.

“It’s the house over there.”

Yoongi stares and something itches in his chest. It shouldn’t look like this, he thinks, all nice and sweet, a small building with curtains on the windows and neat shrubberies bordering a low wall; welcoming and reassuring. Misery shouldn’t have shelter in a place like this. Misery should bleed, bleed over crumbling walls and smashed windows, pushing thorns on the sidewalk. There should be a warning, that something burrows there, something evil; a destroyer, a monster.  

Kihyun stands on the sidewalk and he stares, forgetting how to blink until his eyes tear up. He shakes his head then, tugging Yoongi towards another house, with the same low wall upon which they sit.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. Let’s wait.”

“For what?”

“For classes to be over.”

Yoongi nods as they fall silent; tangled hands hidden in warm pockets, tired eyes watching clouds drift in an empty sky. A weight falls on Yoongi’s shoulder and when he looks Kihyun has closed his eyes, head hidden in the crook of his neck.

“If you don’t look, I won’t know when he comes.”

“It’s okay. We have time yet.”

It could be nice, Yoongi thinks, sitting on the curb and watching centuries pass. It could be nice, but Kihyun is too light, a ghost opened to the winds like an empty house, hallways built for regrets and loss to play in.

“I’m tired.”

“I know.”

“What if he doesn’t want to see me?”

“He’s your brother.”

“Family doesn’t mean anything.”

Yoongi wishes he had something to answer, something true, but when he looks there is nothing to be found.

 

**3.**

Somewhere in the midst of Yoongi talking Hyungwon sat on the counter, feet beating an erratic rhythm against it as he gently swings his too long legs. He’s absently turning the pages of Yoongi’s notebook, fragmented sentences and half-formed thoughts washed-out by a too-bright light.

“You said nothing?”

Yoongi shakes his head, eyes again lost in the blue.

“I had nothing to say. He’s right. Family doesn’t have any inherent meaning.”

Hyungwon hums under his breath, thinking, maybe, and a slow smile creeps on his full lips.

“You can make one for yourself. What is your family like?”

“I don’t know. It just is.”

And it’s true, it just is. Something probing at the back of his mind, a phone call easing misplaced guilt and blurry memories of a childhood neither good nor bad. He had loved his brother, surely, but it had been too easy to fall out of touch. An awkward sort of love that didn’t know where to land and fell too far from the mark, something his parents shared, too, questions without consequences and no one wanting to know the truth.  

“Me, I love my mom. She’s great. I lie to her all the time.”

Yoongi stares and for the first time Hyungwon looks something other than benumbed; wistful, maybe, something quiet and faraway nesting in his eyes.

“Why do you lie to her?”

“She doesn’t need to know. About the waking dreams, and sleep running away from me. I tell her the life I’d like to have, and she’s happy. So I’m okay, too.”

“And that’s sufficient?”

“I don’t know. It’s something, at least.”

“You said you wanted to go back, right?”

“Yeah. I miss her. I miss the person I was, too. Maybe even more. When I look in the mirror I don’t know who I see. But it’s not me, and it’s not happy.”

Yoongi nods, eyes falling to the pages Hyungwon keeps turning, front to back and back to front. The words flashing by have lost all meaning, and maybe they never really held any, honesty lost to fear; fear of showing too much, or not enough, fear of betraying what has been entrusted to him.

“You should keep it.”

“Keep what?”

“The notebook.”

“Don’t you need it? It’s not even finished yet.”

“I’ll start over. You can use the remaining pages.”

Hyungwon seems thoughtful for a split second, feet coming to a stop against the counter. He smiles, then, the dopey smile that Yoongi has come to like more than he knew.

“Yeah, okay. Can you tell me the rest of the story, now? What happens next?”

“He falls asleep.”

 

**4.**

Kihyun falls asleep and Yoongi keeps watch. The street is quiet, empty; so Kihyun sleeps and Yoongi watches. He watches for a long time, until daylight dims and the rare traffic becomes rarer still. No one passes them by, no eagerly awaited student, no long-lost brother to apologize to. Kihyun sleeps and Yoongi watches, until the night air settles with a chill against his spine and Kihyun stirs at his side.

“Awake yet?”

Kihyun nods, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with closed fists and he looks so young, Yoongi thinks, a lost child searching for home.

“What time is it?”

“Close to seven now.”

Kihyun stays silent, staring at the pavement in front of him. No one will come, that much is obvious to them both.

“Maybe he went out to eat with his friends. I didn’t think of that.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Or maybe he’s sick, and he’s home. He used to get sick a lot.”

“That could be it.”

“I should go see.”

“See what?”

Kihyun nods towards the end of the street, eyes lingering on the charming house standing there. Yoongi’s gaze follows and his fingers tighten around Kihyun’s wrist, bringing a frayed smile to the other’s lips. Yoongi would wipe it off with a kiss if he could, but not here, not in the cold and the dark, staring at the beast’s mouth. Kihyun swallows hard, standing up as he tightens his jacket around him, Yoongi’s emptied hand falling back into his lap. It shouldn’t take that much strength, but Kihyun stands and he’s exhausted; it seems that a step towards the house would cost him his life.

“Do I come with you, or…?”

“Yeah, you do.”

 

**5.**

“Did the prince get eaten by the wolf?”

“He’s a prince?”

Hyungwon tilts his head, hair dyed a silvery shade falling into his eyes, a strange smile on his lips. He looks mischievous, like this, and if Kihyun is the prince grappling with the wolf, maybe Hyungwon is the witch hiding in the woods.

“In that story he is. Returning to his lost kingdom, a faithful knight at his side.”

Yoongi laughs, he does, something strangled that almost hurts on the way out. But some kind of tightness gives way, then, leaving him strangely empty.

“Yeah, maybe that’s what happened. We lost, though.”

 

**6.**

The woman who opens the door is small, smaller than Kihyun, nothing in her face a reminder of her son; or maybe, something of his distrust and dark eyes. She opens them wide when she sees them, her eyes, and Kihyun’s fingernails dig too deep in Yoongi’s skin.

He swallows hard, Kihyun, speaking first before his voice disappears, lost in his throat as his will crumbles.

“I came to– is he home?”

“If you’re talking about your brother, he isn’t.”

Her voice is strangely pleasing, sweet to the ear where Yoongi expected harsh and cutting, something of the cruelty that scraped the flesh from Kihyun’s bones.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know. Where are you?”

“I’m – I’m home, I have a home now.”

The woman looks at her son, eyes narrowed, gaze going down to his hand on Yoongi’s wrist. She looks at Yoongi, then, for the first time, and there’s ice in her stare.

“You always had a home. And it’s here, with your family. Not with – wherever you are now. Don’t shame us.”

Yoongi feels Kihyun tense, feels the fingers slip from his wrist, and Kihyun’s shrinking, shrinking at his side. His voice is soft when he speaks, barely heard. Yoongi hates it.

“You really… You think you did nothing wrong.”

“We raised you and your brother the best we could. You weren’t easy.”

“Do you even love us?”

Her mouth pursues, something ugly blooming on her face that has Yoongi looking down.

“This has nothing do to with it. Now you must come home.”

“I don’t – I have a home, and this isn’t it. Mom, I can’t –”

“If you leave now, I don’t ever want to see you again.”

Kihyun falls silent, head down, feet scrapping on the pavement. And so Yoongi steps in, draping cold fingers around his wrist, pulling slightly, as if he could shield him, use his body as a barrier between Kihyun and the horror standing at the door.    

“Then you won’t. Kihyun, there’s nothing for you here. Let’s go, yeah?”

Kihyun looks up, something of sadness and relief swimming in his eyes and he clings to Yoongi like a lifeline as he’s dragged away. He looks back, once, at the woman standing at the door, a goodbye in his face but she just stares and it’s true, family never meant anything.

 

**7.**

“I don’t think you lost.”

“What?”

Hyungwon’s reclining back on his hands, face lifted to the ceiling, eyes closed, the light painting strange shadows over his features. Through Yoongi’s tired eyes he looks only half-real, just like Kihyun used to, existing only for a couple of hours in the dead of night. A liminal space where share words hold no weight and it makes it easy, it makes it light, here an instant and gone the next and nothing really matters.

“He needed an ending to that chapter, right? Now he has one. It’s not great, but it is what it is, and he can write the next part now.”

“Is that your way of saying he can move on?”

Hyungwon’s eyes snap open, and he looks down at Yoongi leaning next to him, sprawled over the counter.

“Yeah, move on, that’s it. I’m not good with words.”

“I think you’re doing alright.”

“Ha, thank you.”

Hyungwon yawns, stretching, something cat-like to his gestures that has Yoongi staring. He stares at the blue coat and the silver hair and the golden skin, soft colors blurring in front of his eyes and maybe he should try to write with that kind of ink.

“There’s an epilogue.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

 

**8.**

They make it halfway down the street before Kihyun stops, Yoongi’s fingers slipping from his wrist. Yoongi looks back, and Kihyun’s staring at the pavement, washed-out under the streetlight, greys and blacks melting into each other. Yoongi steps closer, softly, and Kihyun doesn’t look at him when he speaks.

“I thought I wouldn’t care.”

“About what?”

“She didn’t even say my name, not once. I knew she couldn’t, you know, like, she couldn’t possibly love us. But it’s just, it still sucks, you know? It sort of hurt. Why am I even here? If your own parents don’t love you, who ever will?”

Something breaks between Yoongi’s ribs and the crack is almost heard, a deep sadness pouring from the wound, sadness and this feeling, again, this feeling of melancholic yearning, of deep affection. And so he pulls Kihyun flush against his chest, sheltering him where it’s warm and safe.

“You’re loved, Kihyun, yeah? You are.”

There’s a muffled sound, something wet against his shirt and Kihyun shaking his head and he must say it, he must.

“Kihyun, hey, I love you, okay? I always did. It doesn’t matter if – maybe she doesn’t love you but I will, I am, I’m not just saying this.”

It’s easier than he thought, words softly falling from his lips and it was too long in the making. There’s another gurgling noise, Kihyun lifting his head and his face is aflame.

“Can you stop saying embarrassing shit like this?”

“But it’s true.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

A nod, something settling in the other’s face, something dark and serious but the cloud drifts and it’s light again, a small, strained smile appearing on the adored lips.

“I want to go home.”

“Yeah, okay, let’s go.”

They walk side by side, in silence, Kihyun’s hand finding its way into Yoongi’s pocket where their fingers tangles.

“Kihyun?”

“Mh?”

“I love you.”

“Shut up.”

Kihyun knocks shoulders with him, and Yoongi tugs on his hand until they fall into each other; there’s a laugh and a kiss and for a suspended moment everything is fine, everything is fine under the washed out greys of the streetlights.

 

**9.**

“Why are you crying?”

“Cause I’m tired and it’s beautiful.”

Yoongi whacks Hyungwon over the head and he lets himself slide off the counter with an indignant yelp.

“I didn’t deserve that.”

Yoongi shrugs, straightening as the shop’s door opens, a lone customer trudging in, eyes downcast and face gaunt. Hyungwon watches him until he disappears in the snack aisle before turning back to Yoongi.

“Why all the black lines, then? Why are you sad?”

“Because it’s not enough.”

“Love isn’t enough?”

“Yeah. Something broke in him and I can’t put him together again. Something hollowed, I can see it behind his eyes.”

“I think you can. You just need time. You don’t build a family in a day.”

“A family?”

“Isn’t that what you guys are doing?”

Yoongi stares, he stares until the customer puts a pack of honey chips in front of him and he absently scans it as the guy eyes Hyungwon warily, who returns one of his sluggish smiles. They watch him after the door closes behind him, as if waiting for him to disappear in the tide of nothingness rocking outside their island of light.

“Do you think we’ll succeed?”

Hyungwon seems to consider the question intently, head tilted, and it didn’t warrant such efforts yet Yoongi finds that he trusts him, trust his words and the thoughtfulness behind them.

“I don’t see why not.”

Yoongi nods, eyes falling to the notebook abandoned on the counter. He’ll start over, he will; write something better, something worth feeling, and it will be fine, it will be okay. The crisscrossing lines stare back at him, yet the abyss doesn’t scare him anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this was a long time coming so I hope you liked it!  
> As per use you can still find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/BlanquetteAO3), [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/blanquette) and [kofi](https://ko-fi.com/S6S0S3EE).  
> Thank you for reading!!


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